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THE 



TRUE CONSTITUTION OF GOVERNMENT. 



t $mn nf §muh].-Mi, 1. 



THE 



TRUE CONSTITUTION OF GOVERNMENT 



IN THE 



SOVEREIGNTY OF THE [NDIVimiAL 



AS THE FINAL DEVELOPMENT OF PROTESTANTISM, 
DEMOCRACY, AND SOCIALISM. 



STEPHEN PEARL ANDREWS. 



SECOND EDITION. 

NEW YORK: 
FOWLERS AND WELLS, PUBLISHERS, 

CLINTON HALL, 131 NASSAU STREET. 

Boston, 1-13 Wasbington-St.] 1 O O O. [London, Kn. M2 Strand. 




--->A^^^ 



\ 









Enteral, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1651, by 

WILLIAM J. BANEIl, 

til me Olei-K's Office of the District Court of the Southern Tistrict 
of New York. 



\^ 



3TErxE0TVPKD RV V.'ILLIAM J. BANKR, 

201 William Street. 



INTRODUCTION. 



This little treatise on the True Constitution of Government 
was delivered as one of the regular course of lectures before 
the New York Mechanics' Institute, for the present winter. 
It is now published as the introductory number of a contemplated 
series of publications, presenting certain new principles of so- 
ciety, which it is the 'belief of the author are eminently adapted 
to supply the felt want of the present day for an adequate so- 
lution of the existing social disturbances. For the principles 
in question, either as original discoveries, or else as presented 
in a new light, as solvents of the knotty questions which are 
now puzzling the most capacious minds and afflicting the most 
benevolent hearts of Christendom, the author confesses his 
very great indebtedness, and he believes the world will yet 
gladly confess its indebtedness, to the genius of Josiah War- 
ren, of Indiana, who has been engaged for more than twenty 
years in testing, almost in solitude, the practical operation, in 
the education of children, in the sphere of commerce, and oth- 
erwise, of the principles which we are now for the first time 
presenting prominently to the public. 

It has been the belief of the author, that there are in the ranks 
of those who are denominated Conservatives many who sym- 
pathize deeply with the objects of radical reform, but who have 
never identified themselves with the movements in that direc- 
tion, either because they have not seen that the practical meas^ 
ures proposed by the advocates of reform contained the ele- 
ments of success, or else because they have distinctly perceived 
or intuitively felt that they did not. They may have been re- 
pelled, too, by the want of completeness in the programme, the 



VI mXRODUCTION. 

want of scientific exactness in the principles announced, or, 
finally, by the want of a lucid conception of the real nature of 
the remedy which is needed for the manifold social evils of 
which all confess the existence in the actual condition of society. 
If there are minds in this position, minds more rigid than others 
in their demands for precise and philosophical principles pre- 
liminary to action, it is from such that the author anticipates the 
most cordial reception of the elements propounded by Mr. 
Warren, so soon as they are seen in their connections and in- 
terrelations with each other. 

Believing that these principles will justify the assumption, I 
have ventured to place at the head of this series of publications 
as a general title, " The Science of Society." 

The propriety of the use of the term " Science," in such a 
connection, may be questioned by some whom habit has accus- 
tomed to apply that terra to a much lower range of investiga- 
tions. If researches into the habits of beetles and tadpoles, and 
their localities and conditions of existence, are entitled to the 
dignified appellation of Science, certainly similar researches 
into the nature, the wants, the adaptations, and, so to speak, 
into the true or requisite moral and social habitat of the spirit- 
ual animal called Man, must be, if conducted according to the 
rigid methods of scientific induction from observed facts, equally 
entitled to that distinction. 

The series of works, of which this is the first in order, will 
deal in no vague aspirations after "the good time coming." 
Tkey will propound definite principles which demand to be re- 
garded as having all the validity of scientific truths, and which, 
taken in their co-relations with each other, are adequate to the 
solution of the social problem. If this pretension be made 
good, the importance of the subject will not be denied. If not 
well founded, the definiteness of the propositions will be favor- 
able to a speedy and successful refutation. s. p. a. 
New York, January^ 1851. 



TRUE CONSTITUTION OF GOVERNMENT 

A LECTURE. 



Ladies and Gentlemen: 

The subject wliich I propose to consider this evening 
is tlie true constitution of human government. 

Every age is a remarkable one, no doubt, for those 
who live in it. When immobility reigns most in 
human aiFairs, there is still enough of movement to 
fix the attention, and even to excite the wonder of 
those who are immediately in proximity with it. This 
natural bias in favor of the period with which we 
have most to do, is by no means sufficient, however, to 
account for the growing conviction, on all minds, that 
the present epoch is a marked transition from an old to 
a new order of things. The scattered rays of the gray 
dawn of the new era date back, indeed, beyond the life- 
time of the present generation. The first streak of light 
that streamed through the dense darkness of the old 
regime was the declaration by Martin Luther of the 
right of private judgment in matters of conscience. 
The next, which shed terror upon the old world, as a 
new portent of impending revolutions, was the denial, 
by Hampden, Sidney, Cromwell, and others, of the 
divine right of kings, and the assertion of inherent 



b TRUE CONSTITUTION OF GOVERNMENT. 

political rights in the people themselves. This wa^ 
followed by the American Declaration of Independence, 
the establishment of a powerful Democratic Republic in 
the western world upon the basis of that principle, fol- 
lowed by the French Revolution, the Reign of Terror, the 
Reaction, and the apparent death in Europe of the 
Democratic idea. Finally, in our day, comes the red 
glare of French Socialism, at which the world is still 
gazing with uncertainty whether it be some lurid and 
meteoric omen of fearful events, or whether it be not 
the actual rising of the Sun of Righteousness, with heal- 
ing in His wings ; for there are those who profoundly 
and religiously believe that the solution of the social 
problem will be the virtual descent of the New Jerusa- 
lem — the installation of the kingdom of heaven upon 
earth. 

First in the religious, then in the political, and finally 
in the social relations of men, new doctrines have thus 
been broached, which are full of promise to the hopeful, 
and full of alarm and dismay to the timid and conserv- 
ative. This distinction marks the broadest division in 
the ranks of mankind. In church, and state, and social 
life, the real parties are the Progressionists and the Re- 
trogressionists — those whose most brilliant , imaginings 
are linked with the future, and those whose sweetest 
remembrances bind them in tender associations to the 
past. Catholic and Protestant, Whig and Democrat, 
Anti-Socialist and Socialist, are terms which, in their 
origin, correspond to this generic diyision ; but no sooner 
does a new classification take place than the parties 
thus formed are again subdivided, on either hand, by 
the ever-permeating tendency, on the one side toward 



TRUE CONSTITUTION OF GOVERNMENT. 9 

freedom, emancipation, and progress, and toward law, 
and order, and immobility on the other. 

Hitherto the struggle between conservatism and pro- 
gTCSS has seem-ed doubtful. Victory has kissed the ban- 
ner, alternately, of either host. At length the serried 
ranks of conservatism falter. Reform, so called, is 
becoming confessedly more potent than its antagonist. 
The admission is reluctantly forced from pallid Hps that 
revolutions — political, social, and religious — constitute 
the programme of the coming age. Reform, so called, 
for weal or woe, but yet Reform, must rule the hour. 
The older constitutions of society have outlived their 
day. No truth commends itself more universally to 
the minds of men now, than that thus set forth by Car- 
lyle : " There must be a new world if there is to be 
any world at all. That human things in our Europe 
can ever return to the old sorrj^ routine, and proceed 
with any steadiness or continuance there — this small 
hope is not now a tenable one. These days of universal 
death must be days of universal new birth if the ruin is 
not to be total and final ! It is a time to make the 
dullest ma.n consider, and ask himself. Whence he came? 
Whither he is bound 1 A veritable ' New Era,' to the 
foolish as well as to the wise." Nor is this state of 
things confined to Europe. The agitations in America 
may be more peaceful, but they are not less profound. 
The foundations of old beliefs and habits of thought 
are breaking up. The old guarantees of order are fast 
falling away. A veritable "new era" with us, too, 
is alike impending and inevitable. 

What remains to be done, then, for wise men, is 
clearly this : to attempt to penetrate the future by in- 



10 TRUE CONSTITUTION OF GOVERNMENT. 

vestigating the past and tlie present, to ascertain 
wlietlier there be not elements of calculation capable of 
fixing with tolerable certainty the precise point in the 
sidereal heavens of human destiny, toward which our 
v/hole system is confessedly verging with accelerated 
velocity. To penetrate the gloom which encircles the 
orbit of our future progression, might, at least, end the 
torture of suspense, even to those who may be least 
content with the nature of the solution. "If," says 
Carlyle again, " the accursed nightmare that is crush- 
ing out the life of us and ours, would take a shape, ap- 
proach us like the Hyrcanian tiger, the Behemoth of 
Caos, or the Archfiend himself — in any shape that we 
could see and fasten on — a man can have himself 
shot with cheerfulness, but it needs that he shall clearly 
see for what." 

It is, then, neither unbecoming nor inappropriate, at 
this time, to attempt to prognosticate, by philosophical 
deductions from operative principles, the characteristics 
of the new society which is to be constructed out of the 
fragments of the old. It is, perhaps, only right that I 
should begin by declaring the general nature of the re- 
sults to which my own mind is conducted by the specu- 
lations I have made upon the subject, and toward which 
I shall, so far as I may, endeavor, this evening, to sway 
your convictions. 

I avow, that for one, I take the hopeful, the expectant, 
even the exulting view of the prospects of humanity, 
under the influence of causes which, to the minds of 
many, are pregnant with evil. I hail the progress of 
that unsparing criticism of old institutions which is the 
characteristic of the present age. I hail with stiil 



TRUE CONSTITUTION OF GOVERNMENT. 11 

liiglier enthusiasm, a dim outline wliicli begins to be 
perceived by the keenest vision, through the twilight 
mists which yet hang upon the surrounding hilltops of 
a social fabric, whose foundations are equity, whose 
ceiling is security, whose pillars are co-operation and 
fraternity, and whose capitals and cornices are carved 
into the graceful forms of mutual urbanity and polite- 
ness. It is just to you that I should announce this 
faith, that you may receive the vaticinations of the 
prophet, with due allowance for the inebriation of the 
prophetic rhapsody. I proclaim myself in some sense 
a visionary ; but in all ages there have been visionaries 
whose visions of to-day have proved the substantial re- 
alities of to-morrow. 

I shall make no apology for the rashness of the at- 
tempt to trace, with a distinct outline, some of the gi- 
gantic changes which will occur in the social organiza- 
tion of the world as the necessary outgrowth of princi- 
ples now at work, and which are becoming every day 
more potential, in proportion as forces, which have 
hitherto been deemed antagonistic, converge and co- 
operate. 

I affirm, then, firstly, that there is at this day a 
marked convergence and a prospective co-operation of 
principles which have hitherto resisted each other, or, 
more properly, a development of one common principle 
in spheres of life so diverse from each other that they 
have hitherto been regarded as unrelated, if not posi- 
tively antagonistic. I assert, and shall endeavor to 
make good the assertion, that the essential spirit, the 
vital and fundamental principle of the three great mod- 
ern moyements to which I have already alluded, namely, 



12 TRUE CONSTITUTION OF GOVERNMENT. 

the Protestant Reformation, tlie Democratic Revolution, 
still progressing, and, finally, the Socialist Agitation, 
•which is spreading in multiform varieties of reproduc- 
tion over the whole civilized world, is one and the 
same, and that this common affinity is beginning in 
various ways to be recognized or felt. If this assertion 
be true, it is one of immense significance. If Protest- 
antism, Democracy, and Socialism are merely different 
expressions of the same idea, then, undoubtedly, the 
confluent force of these three movements will expand 
tremendously the sweep of their results, in the direc- 
tion toYf ard which they collectively tend. 

What, then, if this be so, is this common element ? 
In what great feature are Protestantism, Democracy, 
and Socialism identical 1 I will answer this interroga- 
tory first, and demonstrate the answer afterward. 
Protestantism, Democracy, and Socialism are identical 
in the assertion of the Supremacy of the Individual — a 
dogma essentially contumacious, revolutionary, and an- 
tagonistic to the basis principles of all the older institu- 
tions of society, w^hich make the Individual subordinate 
and subject to the Church, to the State, and to Society 
respectively. Not only is this supremacy or sovereign- 
ty OF THE INDIVIDUAL a commou element of all three 
of these great modern movements, but I will make the 
still more sweeping assertion, that it is substantially the 
whole of those movements. It is not merely a feature 
as I have just denominated it, but the living soul itself, 
the vital energy, the integral essence or being of them 
all. 

Protestants and Protestant churches may differ in 
relation to every other article of their creed, and do so 



TRUE CONSTITUTION OF GOVERNMENT. 13 

differ, without ceasing to be Protestants, so long as tliey 
assert the paramount right of private or individual 
judgment in matters of conscience. It is that, and 
that only, which makes them Protestants, and distin- 
guishes them from the Catholic world, which asserts, 
on the contrary, the supreme authority of the church, 
of the priesthood, or of some dignitary or institution 
other than the Individual whose judgment and whose 
conscience is in question. In like manner. Democrats 
and Democratic governments and institutions may differ 
from each other, and may vary infinitely at different 
-periods of time, and still remain Democratic, so long 
as they maintain the one essential principle and condi- 
tion of Democracy, namely, that all goternmental pow- 
ers reside in, are only delegated by, and can be, at any 
moment, resumed by the people — that is, by the indi- 
viduals, who are first Individuals, and who then, by 
virtue only of the act of delegating such powers, be- 
come a people, that* is, a combined mass of Individuals. 
It is this dogma, and this alone, which makes the Dem- 
ocrat, and which distinguishes him from the Despotist, 
or the defender of the divine right of kings. 

Again, Socialism assumes every shade and variety 
of opinion respecting the modes of realizing its own 
aspirations, and, indeed, upon, every other point, except 
one, which, when investigated, will be found to be the 
paramount rights of the Individual over social institu- 
tions ; and the consequent demand that all existing social 
institutions shall be so modified that the Individual shall 
be in no manner subjected to them. This, then, is the 
identical principle of Protestantism and Democracy 
carried into its application in another sphere. The 



14 THUE CONSTITUTION OF GOYr.ilNMENT. 

celebrated formiik of Fourier, that " destinies are pro- 
portioned to attractions," means, when translated into 
less technical phraseology, that society must be so re- 
organized, that every Individual shall be empowered to 
choose and vary his own destiny or condition and pur- 
suits in life, untramm^eled by social restrictions ; in 
other words, so that every man may be a law unto him- 
self, paramount to all other human laws, and the sole 
judge for himself of the divine law and of the requisi- 
tions of his own individual nature and organization. 
This is equally the fundamental principle of all the 
social theories, except in the case of the Shakers, the 
Rappites, etc., which are based upon religious whims, 
demanding submission, as matter of duty, to a despotic 
rule, and w^hich embody, in another form, the readoption 
of the popish or conservative principle. They, there- 
fore, while they live in a form of society similar in 
some respects to those which have been proposed by 
the various schools of Socialists, are, in fact, neither 
Protestants nor Democrats, and, consequently, not So- 
cialists in the sense in which I am now defining Social- 
ism. The forms of society proposed by Socialism are 
the mere shell of the doctrine — means to the end — a 
platform upon which to place the Individual, in order 
that he may be enabled freely to exercise his own Indi- 
viduality, which is the end and aim of all. We have 
seen that the shell is one which may be inhabited by 
despotism. Possibly it is unfit for the habitation of 
any thing else than despotism, which the Socialist 
hopes, by ensconcing himself therein, to escape. It is 
possible, even, that Socialism may have mistaken its 
measures altogether^ and that the whole system of As- 



TRUE CONSTITUTION OF GOVERNMENT. 15 

sociation and combined interests and combined respon- 
sibilities proposed by it, may be essentially antagonistic 
to the very ends proposed. All this, however, if it be 
so, is merely incidental. It belongs to the shell, and 
not to the substance — to the means, and not to the 
end. The whole programme of Socialism may yet be 
abandoned or reversed, and yet Socialism remain in 
substance the same thing. What Socialism demands, 
is the emancipation of the Individual from social bond- 
age, by whatsoever means will effect that design, in the 
same manner as Protestantism demands the emancipa- 
tion of the Individual from ecclesiastical bondage, and 
Denlocracy from political. 'Whosoever makes that de- 
mand, or labors to that end, is a Socialist. Any par- 
ticular views he may entertain, distinguishing him from 
other Socialists, regarding practical measures, or the 
ultimate forms of society, are the m^re specific differ- 
ences, like those 'which divide the Protestant sects of 
Christendom. 

This definition of Socialism may surprise some into 
the discovery of the fact, that they have been Social- 
ists all along, unawares. Some, on the other hand, 
who have called themselves Socialists, may not at once 
be inclined to accept the definition. They may not 
perceive clearly that it is the emancipation of the In- 
dividual for which they are laboring, and afiirm that it 
is, on the other hand, the freedom and happiness of 
the race. They will not, however, -deny that it is 
both; and a very little reflection will show that the 
freedom and happiness of each individual will he the 
freedom and happiness of the race, and that the free- 
dom and happiness of the race can not exist so long as 



X6 TRUE CONSTITUTION OF GOYERNMEKT. 

there is any individual of tlie race wlio is liot liappy 
and free. So the Protestant and the Democrat may 
not always have a clear intellectual perception of the dis- 
tinctive principle of their creeds. He may be attached 
to it from an instinctive sentiment, which he has never 
thoroughly analyzed, or even from the mere accidents 
of education and birth. 

Protestantism proclaims that the Individuol has an 
inalienable right to judge for himself in all matters of 
conscience. Democracy proclaims that the Individual 
has an inalienable right to life, liberty, and the pursuit 
of happiness. Socialism proclaims that the Individual 
has an inalienable right to that social position which 
his powers and natural organization qualify him, and 
which his tastes incline him to fill, and, consequently, 
to that constitution or arrangement of the property re- 
lations, and other relations of society, whatsoever that 
may be, which will enable him to enjoy and exercise 
that right — the adaptation of social conditions to the 
wants of each Individual, with all his peculiarities and 
fluctuations of taste, instead of the moulding of the 
Individual into conformity with the rigid requirements 
of a preconcerted social organization. 

If this be a correct statement of the essential nature 
of Protestantism, Democracy, and Socialism, then Prolr- 
estantism. Democracy, and Socialism are not actuated 
by three distinct principles at all. They are simply 
three partial announcements of one generic principle, 
which lies beneath all these movements, and of which 
they are the legitimate outgrowths or developments, 
modified only by the fact of a different application of 
the game principle. This great generic principle, which 



TRUE CONSTITUTION OF GOVERNMENT. IT 

underlies every manifestation of tliat universal unrest 
and revolution, Tvliicli is known technically in this age 
as " Progress," is nothing more nor less than " The 
Sovereignty of the Individual." It is that which 
is the central idea and vital principle of Protestantism ; 
it is that which is the central idea and vital principle 
of Democracy ; and it is that which is the central idea 
and vital principle of Socialism. 

This being so, it is high time that the mutual affinity 
of these movements sliould be intelligently perceived 
and recognized both by the friends and the enemies of 
the movements themselves. It is high tim'e that the 
scene of the battle-field should be shifted from the 
right or wrong of any or all of the partial developments 
of the principle to the essential right or wrong of the 
principle itself. The true issue is not whether Prot- 
estantism be good or evil, whether Democracy be good 
or evil, nor whether Socialism be good or evil, but 
whether the naked, bald, unlimited principle of the 
Sovereignty of the Individual, in human government 
and the administration of human affairs, be essentially 
good and true or essentially pernicious and false. This 
is the issue now up for trial before the world, and the 
definitive decision of Avhich must be had before the 
final destiny of mankind upon earth can be even rough- 
hewn by the most vivid imagination, and certainly be- 
fore any thing approximating scientific deduction re- 
specting it can be had. 

You will please to consider yourselves, Ladies and 

Gentlemen, as a jury empannelled to try this issue. I 

take my position before you as the advocate of the 

vSovereignty of the Individual, and the defender of the 

2* 



18 TRUE CONSTITUTION OF GOVERNMENT. 

spirit of tlie present age. If this principle be essen- 
tially good and true, tlien it may be trusted wherever 
it leads, and the general drift of what the world calls 
" Progress" is in the right direction, whatever mistakes 
may be made in matters of detail. If it is a false 
principle, the sooner we understand that fact the bet- 
ter ; but let it be also understood in that case, that we 
have much to undo which has been already done, and 
which h!fs been supposed to be well done, in these mod- 
ern times. In that case. Protestantism is all wrong, 
and Democracy is all wrong ; the Whateleys, the Wise- 
mans, the Bronsons, the Windischgratzes, and the Hay- 
naus are philosophers and philanthropists of the right 
school ; and the Luthers, the Channings, the Jeffersons, 
the Washingtons, and the Kossuths are the world's 
worst foes — the betrayers and scourgers which the 
wrath of an offended Heaven has let loose upon earth, 
first to delude, and then to punish mankind for their sins. 
I will first endeavor to set before you a clearer view 
of the doctrine of the Sovereignty of the Individual, 
as based upon the principle of the infinite Individuality 
of things. I will then show that this Sovereignty of 
the Individual furnishes the law of the development of 
human society, as illustrated in the progressive move- 
ments of modern times. Finally, I shall endeavor to 
trace the development which is hereafter to result from 
the further operation of this principle, and to fix, so 
nearly as may be, the condition of human affairs to- 
ward which it conducts, especially in that particular 
department of human affairs which constitutes the sub- 
ject of investigation this evening, namely, the govern- 
ment of mankind. 



TRUE CONSTITUTION OF GOVERNMENT. 19 

The doctrine of the Sovereignty of the Individual — 
in one sense itself a principle — grows out of the still 
more fundamental principle of " Individuality, " 
which pervades universal nature. Individuality is 
positively the most fundamental and universal princi- 
ple which the finite mind seems capable of discovering, 
and the best image of the Infinite. There are no two 
objects in the universe which are precisely alike. Each 
has its own constitution and peculiarities, which distin- 
guish it from every other. Infinite diversity is the 
universal law. In the multitude of human counte- 
nances, for example, there are no two alike, and in the 
multitude of human characters there is the same vari- 
ety. The hour which your courtesy has assigned to me 
would be entirely consumed, if I were to attempt to ad- 
duce a thousandth part of the illustrations of this subtile 
principle of Individuality, which lie patent upon the 
face of nature, all around me. It applies equally to 
persons, to things, and to events. There have been no 
two occurrences Avhich were precisely alike during all 
the cycling periods of time. No action, transaction, 
or set of circumstances whatsoever ever corresponded 
precisely to any other action, transaction, or set of cir- 
cumstances. Had I a precise knowledge of all the oc- 
currences which have ever taken place up to this hour, 
it would not suffice to enable me to make a law which 
would be applicable in all respects to the very next oc- 
currence which shall take place, nor to any one of the 
infinite millions of events which shall hereafter occur. 
This diversity reigns throughout every kingdom of na- 
ture, and mocks at all human attempts to make laws, 
or constitutions, or regulations, or governmental insti- 



20 TRUE CONSTITUTION OF GOVERNMENT. 

tutions of any sort, wliicli sliall work justly and har- 
moniously amidst the unforeseen contingencies of the 
future. 

The individualities of objects are least, or, at all 
events, they are less apparent, when the objects are 
inorganic or of a low grade of organization. The in- 
dividualities of the grains of sand which compose the 
beach, for example, are less marked than those of veg- 
etables, and those of vegetables are less than those of 
animals, and, finally, those of animals are less than 
those of man. In proportion as an object is more complex, 
it embodies a greater number of elements, and each 
element has its own individualities, or diversities, in 
every new combination into which it enters. Conse- 
quently these diversities are multiplied into each other, 
in the infinite augmentation of geometrical progression. 
Man, standing, then, at the head of the created uni- 
verse, is consequently the most complex creature in 
existence — every individual man or woman being a lit- 
tle world in him or herself, an image or reflection of 
God, an epitome of the Infinite. Hence the individual- 
ities of such a being are utterly immeasurable, and 
every attempt to adjust the capacities, the adaptations, 
the wants, or the responsibilities of one human being by 
the capacities, the adaptations, the wants, or the re- 
sponsibilities of another human being, except in the 
very broadest generalities, is unqualifiedly futile and 
hopeless. Hence every ecclesiastical, governmental, or 
social institution which is based on the idea of demand- 
ing conformity or likeness in any thing, has ever been, 
and. ever \Yill be, frustrated by the operation of this sub- 
tilej all-pervading principle of Individuality. Hence hu- 



TRUE CONSTITUTION OF GOTEJtNMENT. 21 

man society lias ever been and is still in tlie turmoil of 
revolution. The only alternative known lias been between 
revolution and despotism. Revolutions violently burst 
the bonds, and explode tlie foundations of existing insti- 
tutions. The institution falls before tlie Individual. Des- 
potism only succeeds by denaturalizing mankind. It extin- 
guishes their individualities only by extinguishing them. 
The Individual falls before the institution. Judge ye 
which is best, the man-made or the God-made thing. 

In the next place this Individuality is inherent and 
unconquerable, except, as I have just said, by extin- 
guishing the man himself. The man himself has no 
power over it. He can not divest himself of his organic 
peculiarities of character, any more than he can divest 
himself of his features. It attends him even in the 
effort he makes, if he makes any, to divest himself of 
it. He may as well attempt to flee his own shadow, as 
to rid himself of the indefeasible, God-given inheritance 
of his own Individuality. 

Finally, this indestructible and all-pervading Individ- 
uality furnishes, itself, the law, and the only true law, 
of order and harmony. Goverments have hitherto been 
established, and have apologised for the unseemly fact 
of their existence, from the necessity of establishing 
and maintaining order; but order has never yet been 
maintained, revolutions and violent outbreaks have 
never yet been ended, public peace and harmony have 
never yet been secured, for the precise reason that the 
organic, essential, and indestructible natures of the 
objects which it was attempted to reduce to order hav<3 
always been constricted and infringed by every such 
attempt. Just in proportion as the effort is less and 



22 TRUE CONSTITUTION OF GOVERNMENT. 

less made to reduce men to order, just in tliat propor- 
tion tliey become more orderly, as witness tlie difference 
in the state of society in Austria and the United States. 
Plant an army of one hundred thousand soldiers in New 
York, as at Paris, to preserve the peace, and we should 
have a bloody revolution in a week ; and be assured that 
the only remedy for what little of turbulence remains 
among us, as compared with European societies, will be 
found to be more liberty. When there remain positively 
no external restrictions, there will be positively no dis- 
turbance, provided always certain regulating principles 
of justice, to which I shall advert presently, are ac- 
cepted and enter into the public mind, serving as sub- 
stitutes for every species of repressive laws. 

I was saying that Individuality is the essential law 
of order. This is true throughout the universe, Yf hen 
every individual particle of matter obeys the law of its 
own attraction, and comes into that precise position, 
and moves in that precise direction vfhich its own inher- 
ent individualities demand, the harmony of the spheres 
is evolved. By that means only natural classification, 
natural order, natural organisation, natural harmony 
and agreement are attained. Every scheme or arrange- 
ment which is based upon the principle of thwarting 
the inherent affinities of the individual monads which 
compose any system or organism is essentially vicious, 
and the organization is false — a mere bundle of revolu- 
tionary and antagonistic atoms. It is time that human 
system builders should begin to discover this universal 
truth. The principle is self-evident. Objects bound 
together contrary to their nature, must and will seek to 
rectify themselves by breaking the bonds which confine 



TRUE CONSTITUTION OF GOVERNMENT. 2B 

tliem, while those which come together by their own 
affinities remain quiescent and content. Let human 
system makers of all sorts, then, admit the principle 
of an infinite Individuality among men, which can not 
be suppressed, and which must be indulged and fostered, 
at all events, as one element in the solution of the prob- 
lem they have before them. If they are unable to see 
clearly how all external restrictions can be removed 
with safety to the well-being of society, let them, never- 
theless, not abandon a principle which is self-evident, 
but let them modestly suspect that there may be some 
other elements in the solution of the same problem, 
which their sagacity has not yet enabled them to dis- 
cover. In all events, and at all hazards, this Individ- 
uality of every member of the human family must be 
recognized and indulged, because first, as we have seen, 
it is infinite, and cannot be measured or prescribed for; 
then, because it is inherent, and can not be conquered ; 
and, finally, because it is the essential element of order, 
and can not, consequently, be infringed without engen- 
dering infinite confusion, such as has hitherto universally 
reigned, in the administration of human afiairs. 

If, now. Individuality is a universal law which must 
be obeyed if we would have order and harmony in any 
sphere, and, consequently, if we would have a true con- 
stitution of human government, then the absolute Sov- 
ereignty of the Individual necessarily results. The 
monads or atoms of which human society is composed 
are the individual men and women in it. They must 
be so disposed of, as we have seen, in order that society 
may be harmonic, that the destiny of each shall be 
controlled by his or her own individualities of tastej 



24 TRUE CONSTITUTION OF GOVERNMENT. 

conscience, intellect, capacities, and will. But man is | 

a being endowed with consciousness. He, and no one 
else, knows the determining force of his own attractions. 
No one else can therefore decide for him, and hence 
Individuality can only become the law of human action 
by securing to each individual the sovereign determina- 
tion of his own judgment and of his own conduct, in all 
things, with no right reserved either of punishment or 
censure on the part of any body else whomsoever ; and 
this is what is meant by the Sovereignty of the Indi- 
vidual, limited only by the ever-accompanying condition, 
resulting from the equal Sovereignty of all others, that 
the onerous consequences of his actions be assumed by 
himself. 

If my audience were composed chiefly of Catholics, or 
Monarchists, or Anti-Progressionists of any sort, I 
should develop this argument more at length, for as 1 
have said, it is the real issue, and the only real issue 
between the reformatory and the conservative portions 
of mankind ; but I suppose that I may, with propriety, 
assume that I am before an auditory who are in the 
main Protestant and Democratic, and assuming that, I 
shall then be authorized to assume, in accordance with 
the principles I have endeavored to develop, that they 
are likewise substantially Socialist, according to the 
definition I have given to Socialism, whether they have 
hitherto accepted or repudiated the name. It is 
enough, however, if I address you as Protestants and 
Democrats, or as either of these, I shall therefore as- 
sume, without further dwelling upon the fundamental 
statement of those principles, that you are ready to 
admit so much of Individuality and of the Sovereignty 



TRUE CONSTITUTION 0¥ GOVERNMENT. 25 

of tlie Individual as is necessarily involved in the pro- 
positions of Protestantism or Democracy. I shall as- 
sume that I am before an assembly of men and women 
who sympathize with ecclesiastical and political en- 
franchisement — who believe that what the world calls 
Progress, in these modern times, is in the main real and 
not sham progress, a genuine and legitimate develop- 
ment of the race. Instead, therefore, of pursuing the 
main argument further, I will return to, and endeavor 
more fully to establish, a position which I have abeady 
assumed, namely, that by virtue of the fact of being 
either a Protestant or a Democrat, you have admitted 
away the whole case, and that you are fully committed 
to the whole doctrine of Individuality and the Sover- 
eignty of the Individual, wherever that may lead. 

I assert, then, the doctrine of Individuality, in its 
broadest and most unlimited sense. I assert that the 
law of genuine pi^ogress in human affairs is identical 
with the tendency to individualize. In ecclesiastical 
affairs it is the breaking up of the Church into sects, 
the breaking up of the larger sects into minor sects, the 
breaking up of the minor sects, by continual schism, into 
still minuter fragments of sects, and, finally, a complete 
disintegration of the whole mass into individuals, at 
which point every human being becomes his own sect 
and his own church. Does it require any demonstra- 
tion that this is the natural tendency and the legitimate 
development of Protestantism, that it is in fact the ne- 
cessary and inevitable outgrowth of its own fundament- 
al principle. The History of all Religions in Protest- 
ant Christendom is becoming already too voluminous to 
be written. With the multiplication of sects grows tho 
3 



26 TRUE CONSTITUTION OF GOVERNMENT. 

spirit of toleration, which is nothing else but the recog- 
nition of the sovereignty of others. A glance at the 
actual condition of the Protestant Church demonstrates 
the tendency to the obliteration of Sectarianism by the 
very superabundance of sects. 

In the political sphere the individualizing tendency 
of Democracy is exhibited in the distribution of the 
departments of government into the hands of different 
depositaries of power, the discrimination of the chief 
functions of government into the Legislature, the Exec- 
utive, and the Judiciary, in the division of the Legis- 
lature into distinct branches, in the representative sys- 
tem which recognizes the Individuality of different con- 
federated states, and of different portions of the same 
state, in the divorce of the Church and State, and yet 
more strikingly than all, in the successive surrender to 
the Individual of one branch after another of what was 
formerly regarded as the legitimate business of gov- 
ernment. 

Under the old order of things, government interfered 
to determine the trade or occupation of the Individual, 
to settle his religious faith, to regulate his locomotion, 
to prescribe his hours of relaxation and retirement, the 
length of his beard, the cut of his apparel, his relative 
rank, the mode of his social intercourse, and so on con- 
tinuously, until government was in fact every thing, and 
the Individual nothing. Democracy, working somewhat 
blindly, it is true, but yet guided by a true instinct, 
begotten by its own great indwelling vital principle, the 
Sovereignty of the Individual, has already substantially 
revolutionized all that. It has swept away, for the 
most part, in America at least, the impertinent inter- 



TRUE CONSTITUTION OF GOVERNMENT. 27 

ference of government with tlie pursuits, the religious 
opinions and ceremonies, the travel, the amusements, 
the dress, and the manners of the citizen. One whole 
third of the field heretofore occupied by government 
has thus been surrendered to the Individual. To this 
point we have already attained, practically, at the pre- 
cise stage at which we now are in the transition from 
the past to the future model of the organization of 
society. 

But the principle of Democracy does not stop here. 
Government still interferes, even in these United States, 
in some instances, with the social and political status 
of the Individual, as in the case of slavery, with com- 
merce, with the title to the soil, w^ith the validity of 
private obligations, with the treatment of crime, and, 
finally, with the marriage and parental relationships of 
the citizen ; and it is obviously an incongruous fact, that 
it interferes with all these, in many instances at least, 
to the great annoyance of the citizen, who, according to 
our political theor}^, is himself the sovereign, and con- 
sequently the voluntary fabricator of that which annoys 
him. To the philosophical mind there is that in thig 
incongruity alone, which predicts the ultimate emanci- 
pation of the citizen from the restrictions of legislation 
and jurisprudence, in every aspect of his existence. 
Accordingly, there is another whole third of the domain 
hitherto occupied by Government which is at this mo- 
ment in dispute between it and the Individual. The 
whole of that legislation wdiich establishes or tolerates 
that form of human bondage which is called slavery, is 
at this moment undergoing the most determined and 
vigorous onset of public opinion which any false and 



28 TRUE CONSTITUTION OF GOVERNMENT. 

tyrannical institution of Government was ever called 
upon to endure. The full and final abolition of slavery- 
can not but be regarded, by every reflecting mind, as 
prospectively certain. Such is the fiat of Democracy ; 
such is the inevitable sequitur from the Democratic 
premise of inherent political rights. Government in- 
terferes, again, to regulate commerce ; but what is the 
demand of Democracy in relation to that? Nothing 
short of absolute free trade. Democracy says to Gov- 
ernment, Hands off! Let the Individual determine 
for himself when, and where, and how he will buy and 
sell. Does any one doubt that Democracy will, in the 
long run, have its own way in relation to this matter 
as well, and that tariffs, and custom houses, and col- 
lectorships, and the whole lumbering paraphernalia of 
indirect taxation, which fences out the intercourse of 
nations, will be looked back upon, in a generation or 
two, in a light akin to that in which the police system 
of Fouche, the passport system of the despotic countries 
of Europe, and the censorship of the press are now re- 
garded by us 1 Government still interferes to control 
the public domain ; but a^lready an organized and rapidly 
augmenting political organization is demanding in this 
country a surrender of this whole subject to the Individ- 
ual Sovereigns who make the Government, and who need 
the land. Nor are the modest pretensions of Land Re- 
form, which as yet touch only the public domain, likely 
to end at that. The very foundation principles of the 
ownership of land, as vested in individuals and protected 
by law, can not escape much longer from a searching and 
radical investigation, and when that comes, the arbitrary 
legislation of Government will have to give place to such 



TRUE C(>NSTITUTION OF GOVERNMENT. 29 

natural and scientific principles regulating the subject 
as maybe evolved. Land Reform, in its present aspect, 
is merely the prologue to a thorough and unsparing, but 
philosophical and equitable agrarianism, by means of 
which either the land itself, or an equal participation 
in the benefits of the land, shall be secured to the 
whole people. Science, not human legislation, must 
finally govern the distribution of the soil. Governmentj 
again, interferes with contracts and private obligations. 
But already the demand is growing loud for the aboli- 
tion of the usury laws, and a distant murmuring is 
overheard of the question, whether good faith and the 
maintenance of credit vfould not be promoted by dis- 
pensing with ail laws for the collection of debts. Both 
the statesman and the citizen have observed, not with- 
out profound consideration, the significant fact that the 
fear of the law is less potential for the enforcement of 
obligations than commercial honor — that the protest of 
a notary, or even a whisper of suspicion on Change, is 
fraught with a cogency which neither a bench warrant 
nor a capias ad satisfaciendum ever possessed. Gov 
ernment still deals with criminals by the old-fashioned 
process of punishment, but both science and philan- 
thropy concur in pronouncing that the grand remedial 
agency for crime is prevention, and not cure. The , 
whole theory of vindictive punishment is rapidly obso 
lescent. That theory once dead, all that remains of 
punishment is simply defensive. Imprisonment melts 
into the euphemism, detention ; and, while detained, the 
prisoner is treated tenderly, as a diseased or unfortunate 
person. Nor does Democrac}^ stop at that. Democracy 
declares that liberty is an inalienable right, the inher- 
3* 



30 TRUE CONSTITUTION OF GOVERNMENT. 

ent prerogative of tlie Individual Sovereign, of which 
there is no possible defeasance, even by his own act. 
Democracy therefore claims, or will claim when it bet- 
ter understands the universality of its own pretension, 
either such conditions of society that criminals shall no 
longer be made, or else that some more delicate method 
of guardianship shall be devised which shall respect the 
dignity with which Democracy invests the Individual 
man. 

When the battles which are thus already waged in 
these various departments of human affairs between 
Government and the Individual shall have been finally 
fought and won, the domain of Government will have 
shrunk to the merest fragment of its old dimensions. 
Hardly any sphere of legislation, worthy of the name, 
will remain, save that of the marriage and parental 
relations. These are subjects of great delicacy, and 
form, ordinarily, an insuperable barrier to the freedom 
of investigation in this direction. It is in connection 
with these subjects that men shrink with dismay from 
what they understand to be the programme of Socialism. 
A brief consideration of the subject, conducted with the 
"boldness and impartiality of science, will demonstrate, 
however, that the most extreme proposition of Socialism 
does not transcend, in the least, the legitimate opera- 
tion of the fundamental principle of either Protestant- 
ism or Democracy. There ia that, both in one and the 
other, which, carried simply out to its logical and in- 
evitable conclusion, covers the whole case of marriage 
and the love relations, and completely emancipates them 
from the impertinent interference of human legislation. 
Firstj what says Protestantism 1 Why, that the right 



TRUE CONSTITUTION OF GOVERNMENT. 31 

of private judgment in matters of conscience is para- 
mount to all other authority whatsoever. But marriage 
has been, in all ages, a subject eminently under the 
dominion of conscience and the religious sense. Be- 
sides, it is one of the best recognized principles of high- 
toned religionism, that every action of the life is appro- 
priately made matter of conscience, inasmuch as the 
responsibility of the Individual toward God is held to 
extend to every, even the minutest thing, which the Indi- 
vidual does. No man, we are told, can answer for his 
brother. This, then, settles the whole question. It 
abandons the whole subject to the conscience of the 
Individual. It implies the charge of a spiritual despot- 
ism, wholly unwarranted, for any man to interfere with 
the conscientious determination of any other with regard 
to it. Nor can it be objected, with any effect, that this 
rule only applies when the determination of the Indi- 
vidual accords with, and is based upon, his own consci- 
entious conviction, for who shall determine whether it 
be so or not 1 Clearly no one but the Individual him- 
self. Any tribunal assuming to do it for him would be 
the Inquisition over again, which is the special abhor- 
rence of Protestantism. Such, then, is the Protestant 
faith. But what, let us inquire, is the Protestant 
practice 1 Precisely what it should be, in strict accord- 
ance with the fundamental axiom of Protestantism. 
Every variety of conscience, and every variety of de- 
portment in reference to this precise subject of love is 
already tolerated among us. At one extreme of the 
scale stand the Shakers, who abjure the connection of 
the sexes altogether. At the other extremity stands 
the association of Perfectionists, at Oneida, who hold 



32 TRUE CONSTITUTION OE GOVERNMENT. 

and practice, and justify by tlie Scriptures, as a relig- 
ious dogma, Tfliat they denominate complex marriage, 
or tlie freedom of love. We have, in this State, 
stringent laws against adultery and fornication ; but 
laws of that sort fall powerless, in America, before 
the all-pervading sentiment of Protestantism, which 
vindicates the freedom of conscience to all persons and 
in all things, provided the consequences fall upon the 
parties themselves. Hence the Oneida Perfectionists live 
undisturbed and respected, in the heart of the State of 
New York, and in the face of the world ; and the civil 
government, true to the Democratic principle, which is 
only the same principle in another application, is little 
anxious to interfere Yfith this breach of its own ordi- 
nances, so long as they cast none of the consequences 
of their conduct upon those who do not consent to bear 
them. 

Such, then, is the unlimited sweep of the fundamental 
axiom of Protestantism. Such its unhesitating indorse- 
ments, both theoretically and practically, of the whole 
doctrine of the absolute Sovereignty of the Individual. 
It does not help the matter to assert, that it is an irre- 
ligious or a very immoral act to do this, or that, or the 
other thing. Protestantism neither asserts or denies 
that. It merely asserts that there is no power to de- 
termine that question, higher than the Individual him- 
self. It does not help the matter to affirm that the 
Scriptures, or the lavf of God, delivered in any form, 
has determined the nature and limits of marriage. 
Protestantism, again, neither denies that proposition 
nor affirms it. It merely affirms, again, that the Indi- 
vidual himself must decide for himself what the law 



TRUE CONSTITUTION OF GOVERNMENT. 33 

of God is, ani that there is no authority higher than 
himself to whose decision he can be required to submit. 
It is arrogance, self-righteousness, and spiritual despot- 
ism for me to assume that you have not a conscience 
as well as I, and that if you regulate your own conduct 
in the light of that conscience, it will not be as well 
regulated in the sight of God as it would be if I were 
to impose the decisions of my conscience upon you. 

In general, however. Government still interferes with 
the marriage and parental relations. Democracy in 
America has always proceeded with due deference to 
the prudential yroHo ^festina lente. In France, at the 
time of the first Revolution, Democracy rushed with the 
explosive force of escapement from centuries of com- 
pression, point blank to the bull's eye of its final des- 
tiny, from which it recoiled with such force that the 
stupid world has dreamed, for half a century, that the 
vital principle of Democracy was dead. As a logical 
sequence from Democratic principle, the legal obligation 
of marriage was sundered, and the Sovereignty of the 
Individual above the institution was vindicated. That 
the principle of Democracy is, potentially, still the 
same, will appear upon slight examination. Democracy 
denies all power to Government in matters of religion. 
No Democratic Government does, therefore, or can, 
base its interference with marriage upon the religious 
ground. It defines marriage to be, and regards it as 
being, a mere civil contract. It justifies its own inter- 
ference with it upon the same ground that it justifies 
its interference with other contracts, namely, to enforce 
the civil obligations connected with it, and to insure the 
maintenance of children. But here, as in the case of 



84 TRUE CONSTITUTION OF GOVERNMENT. 

ordinary obligations, if the conviction obtains, that dif- 
ferent conditions of society will render tlie present re- 
lations of property between liiisband and wife, unneces- 
sary, and secure, by the equitable distribution and 
general abundance of wealth, a universal deference on. 
the part of parents, to the dictates of nature in behalf 
of children, Democracy vfill cease to make this subject 
an exception to her dominant principles. A tendency 
to change these conditions is already shown in the pas- 
sage of laws to secure to the wife an independent or 
individual enjoyment of property. Already the observ- 
ation is made, too, that children are never abandoned 
among the wealthy classes, and hence the natural in- 
ference that the scientific production, the equitable dis- 
tribution, and the economical employment of wealth 
w^ould render human laws unnecessary to enforce the 
first mandate of nature, hospitality and kindness toward 
offspring. The doctrine is already considerably diffused, 
that the union of the sexes would be, not only more 
pure, but more permanent, in the absence, under fa- 
vorable circumstances, of all legal interference. But 
whether that be so or not, is not now the question. I 
am merely asserting that the inevitable tendency of 
Democracy, like that of Protestantism, is toward aban- 
doning this subject to the sovereign determination of 
the Individual, and that Democracy in this country will 
attain, only more leisurely, the same point to which it 
went at a single leap, and from which it rebounded, in 
France. 

It is far less obvious, judging from the practical ex- 
hibition which it has hitherto made of itself, that the 
essential principle of Socialism is, equally with that of 



TRUE CONSTITUTION OF GOVERNMENT. 35 

Protestantism and Democracy, the Individual Sover- 
eignty. Indeed, Socialism has been attacked and re- 
Bisted more vigorously than from any other cause, in 
consequence of an instinctive perception that the meas- 
'ares hitherto proposed by it sap the freedom of the In- 
dividual. The connected interests and complicated 
Artificial organization proposed by Fourier, and the re- 
nunciation of independent ownership contemplated by 
Communism, have been severely criticised and denounc- 
ed, and, the most so, perhaps, by those who are the most 
thoroughly imbued wdth the Protestant and Democratic 
Idea of Individuality. To understand this apparent 
discrepancy we must distinguish the leading idea of 
Socialism from the methods proposed by its advocates. 
The two are quite distinct from each other, and it may 
6e that Socialism has mistaken its measures, as every 
human enterprise is liable to do. 

Socialism demands the proper, legitimate, and just 
t-eward of labor. It demands that the interests of all 
shall be so arranged that they shall co-operate, instead 
of clashing with and counteracting each other. It de- 
mands economy in the production and uses of wealth, 
and the consequent abolition of wretchedness and pov- 
erty. To what end does it make these demands 1 
Clearly it is in order that every human being shall be 
in the full possession, control, and enjoyment of his 
own person and modes of seeking happiness, with- 
out foreign interference from any quarter whatsoever. 
This, then, is the spirit of Socialism, and it is neither 
more nor less than a still broader and more compre- 
hensive assertion of the doctrine of the inherent Sov- 
ereignty of the Individual. The Socialist proposes 



86 TRUE CONSTITUTION OF GOVERNMENT. 

association and combined interests merely as a means 
of securing that which he aims at — ^justice, co-opera- 
tion, and the economies of the large scale. Hence it 
follows that the Democrat resists and the Socialist ad- 
vocates Association and Communism for precisely the 
same reason. It is because both want identically the 
same thing. The Democrat sees in connected inter- 
ests a fatal stroke at his personal liberty — the unlim- 
ited sovereignty over his own conduct — and dreads the 
subjection of himself to domestic legislation, manifold 
committees, and continual and authorized espionage 
and criticism. The Socialist sees, in these same ar- 
rangements, abundance of wealth, fairly distributed 
among all, and a thousand beneficent results which he 
knows to be essential conditions to the possession or exer- 
cise of that very Sovereignty of the Individual. Each has 
arrived at one half the truth. The Socialist is right in as- 
serting that all the conditions which he demands are abso- 
lutely essential to the development of the individual self- 
hood. He is wrong in proposing such a fatal surrender 
of Individual liberty for their attainment as every form 
of amalgamated interests inevitably involves. The 
Democrat is negatively wrong in omitting from his pro- 
gramme the absolute necessity for harmonic social re- 
lations — wrong in supposing that there can always be 
a safe and legitimate exercise of those rights which he 
declares to be inalienable, short of those superior do- 
mestic arrangements which the Socialist demands. It 
is futile, for example, to talk of removing the restraints 
of law from marriage, thus guaranteeing freedom in 
" the pursuit of happiness'^ in that relation, before the 
just reward of labor and the consequent prevalence of 



TRUE CONSTITUTION OF GOVERNMENT. 37 

general wealth sliall have created a positive security of 
condition for women and children. Hence the blander 
of Democracy in the old French Revolution, and hence 
the absolute dependence of Democracy, for the working 
out of its own principles, upon the happy solution of 
all the problems of Socialism. Hence, again, the nat- 
ural affinity of Democracy and Socialism, and the rea- 
son why, despite of their mutual misunderstanding, 
they have recently fallen into each other's embrace, in 
France, resounding in the ears of terrified Europe the 
ominous cvj, Vive la Republique Democrafique et 
Social. 

The blunder of Socialism is not in its end, but in its 
means. It consists in propounding a combination of 
interests which is opposed by the individualities of all 
nature, which is consequently a restriction of liberty, 
and which is, therefore, especially antagonistic to the 
very objects which Socialism proposes to attain. It is 
this w^hich prevents the harmony of Democracy and So- 
cialism, even in France, from becoming complete, and 
which renders inevitable the disruption of every at- 
tempted social organization which does not end disas- 
trously in despotism — the inverse mode in which nature 
vindicates her irresistible determination toward Indi- 
viduality. Let that feature of the Socialist movement 
be retrenched, and a method of securing its great ends 
discovered which shall not be self-defeating in its ope- 
ration, and from that point Socialism and Democracy 
will blend into one, and, uniting with Protestantism, 
lose their distinctive appellations in the generic term 
of Individual Sovereignty. 

Such a principle is already discovered. It is capa- 
4 



66 TRUE CONSTITUTION OF GOVERNMENT. 

ble of satisfactory demonstration tliat out of the adop- 
tion of a simple change in the commercial system of 
the world, by which cost and not value shall be recog- 
nized as the limit of price, will grow, legitimately, all 
the wealth-producing, equitable, co-operating, and har- 
monizing results which Socialism has hitherto sought 
to realize through the combination or amalgamation of 
interests, while, at the same time, it will leave, intact, 
the individualities of existing society, and even promote 
them to an extent not hitherto conceived of. It is not 
noYf, however, the appropriate time to trace out the re- 
sults of such a principle. We are concerned at pres- 
ent with Individuality and the spirit of the age as 
connected with governmental affairs. '^ 

It is already the axiom of Democracy, that that is 
the best government which governs least — that, in other 
words, which leaves the largest domain to the Individual 
sovereign. It may sound strange, and yet it is rigidly 
true, that nothing is more foreign to the essential na- 
ture of Democracy than the rule of majorities. De- 
mocracy asserts that all men are born free and equal, 
that is, that every individual is of right free from the 
governing control of every other and of all others. 
Democracy asserts, also, that this right is inalienable 
— that it can neither be surrendered nor forfeited to 
another Individual, nor to a majority of other Individ- 
uals. But the practical application of this principle 
has been, and will always be found to be, incompatible 
Tfith our existing social order. It presupposes, as I 

* No. II. of this series of publications will be an exposition of 
the basis principle of Equitable Commerce, namely, that Cost is 
the scientific limit of Price. 



TRUE CONSTITUTION OF GOVERNMENT. 39 

have said, tlie preliminary attainment of the conditions 
demanded by Socialism. The rule of majorities is, 
therefore, a compromise enforced by temporary expe- 
diency — -a sort of half-way station-house between Des- 
potism, which is Individuality in the concrete, and the 
Sovereignty of every Individual, which is Individuality 
in the discrete form. 

Genuine Democracy is identical with the no-govern- 
ment doctrine. The motto to which I have alluded 
looks directly to that end. Finding obstacles in the 
present social organization to the realization of its the- 
ory. Democracy has called a halt for the present, and 
consented to a truce. The no-government men of our 
day are practically not so wise, while they are theoret- 
ically more consistent. They are, in fact, the genuine 
Democrats. It is they who are fairly entitled to the 
soubriquet of " The unterrified Democracy." They 
fearlessly face ^ all consequences, and push their doc- 
trine quite out to its logical conclusions. In so doing, 
they repeat the blunder which was committed in France. 
They insist upon no government higher than that of the 
Individual, while they leave in existence those causes 
which imperatively demand, and will always demand so 
long as they exist, the intervention of just such restrict- 
ive governments as we now have. 

It results from all that has been said, tiiat the essen- 
tial principle of Protestantism, of Democracy, and of 
Socialism, is one and the same ; that it is identical 
with what is called the spirit of the present age ; and 
thp.t all of them are summed up in the idea of the ab- 
solute supremacy of the Individual above all human 
institutions. 



40 TRUE CONSTITUTION OF GOVERNMENT. 

What, then, tlie question returns, is to be the up- 
shot of this movement ? If every department of mod- 
ern reform is imbued with one and the same animating 
principle — if there be already an obvious convergence, 
and, prospectively, an inevitable conjunction and co- 
operation of the three great modern revolutionary 
forces. Protestantism, Democracy, and Socialism — if, 
even now, in their disjointed and semi-antagonistic re- 
lations, they prove more than a match for hoary con- 
servatism — if, in addition, material inventions and re- 
forms of all sorts concur in the same direction — if, in 
fine, the spirit of the age, or, m.ore properly, of modern 
times, and which we recognize also as the spirit of hu- 
man improvement, tends continually and with accel- 
erated velocity toward the absolute Individualization 
of human affairs, what is the inevitable goal to be 
ultimately reached'? I have said that in religious 
affairs the end must be that every man shall be his 
own sect. This is the simple meaning of Protestant- 
ism, interpreted in the light of its own principles. If 
the occasion were appropriate, it would be a glorious 
contemplation to dwell upon that more perfect harmony 
which will then reign among mankind in the religious 
sphere — a unity growing out of infinite diversity, and 
universal deference for the slightest Individualities of 
opinion in others, transcending in glory that hitherto 
sought by the Church in artificial organizations and 
arbitrary creeds, as far as the new heavens and the 
new earth will excel the old. 

Socialism demands, and will end by achieving, the 
untrammeled selfhood of the Individual in the private 
relations of life, but out of that universal selfhood 



TRUE CONSTITUTION OF GOVERNMENT. 41 

shall grow the highest harmonies of social relationship. 
It is not these subjects, however, that are now specially 
appropriate. Let us restrict our specific inquiry to the 
remaining one of the three spheres of human affairs, 
which we have in the general view considered con- 
jointly, namely, that which relates to human govern- 
ment. 

Is it within the bounds of possibility, and, if so, is 
it within the limits of rational anticipation, that all 
human governments, in the sense in which government 
is now spoken of, shall pass away, and be reckoned 
among the useless lumber of an experimental age — 
that forcible government of all sorts shall, at some fu- 
ture day, perhaps not far distant, be looked back upon 
by the Vfhole world, as we in America now look back 
upon the maintenance of a religious establishment, 
supposed in other times, and in many countries still, 
to be essential to, the existence of religion among men ; 
and as we look back upon the ten thousand other im- 
pertinent interferences of government, as government 
is practiced in those countries where it is an institution 
of far more validity and consistency than it has among 
us 1 Is it possible, and, if so, is it rationally probable, 
that the time shall ever come when every man shall be, 
in fine, his own nation as well as his own sect 1 Will 
this tendency to universal enfranchisement — indications 
of which present themselves, as we have seen, in ex- 
uberant abundance on all hands in this age — ultimate 
itself, by placing the Individual above all political in- 
stitutions — the man above all subordination to munici- 
pal law 1 

To put ourselves in a condition to answer this inquiry 
4* 



42 TRUE CONSTITUTION OF GOVEHNMENT. 

with some satisfactory degree of certainty, we must 
first obtain a clear conception of the necessities out of 
which government grows ; then of the functions which 
government performs ; then of the specific tendencies 
of society in relation to those functions ; and, finally, 
of the legitimate successorship for the existing govern- 
mental institutions of mankind. - 

I must apologize as well for the incompleteness as for 
the apparent dogmatism of any brief exposition of this 
subject. I assert that it is not only possible and ra- 
tionally probable, but that it is rigidly consequential 
upon the right understanding of the constitution of man, 
that all government, in the sense of involuntary re- 
straint upon the Individual, or substantially all, m^ust 
finally cease, and along with it the whole complicated 
paraphernalia and trumpery of Kings, Emperors, Presi- 
dents, Legislatures, and Judiciar}^ I assert that the 
indicia of this result abound in existing society, and 
that it is the instinctive or intelligent perception of 
that fact by those who have not bargained for so much, 
which gives origin and vital energy to the reaction in 
Church and State and social life. I assert that the 
distance is less to-day forward from the theory and 
practice of Government as it is in these United States, 
to the total abrogation of all Government above that of 
the Individual, than it is backward to the theory and 
practice of Government as Government now is in the 
despotic countries of the old world. 

The reason why apology is demanded is this : So 
radical a change ■ in governmental affairs involves the 
concurrence of other equally radical changes in social 
habits, commerce, finance, and elsewhere. I have 



TRUE CONSTITUTION OF GOVERNMENT. 43 

shown already, I think, that Democracy would have 
ended m that, had it not been obstructed by the want 
of certain conditions w^hich nothing but the solution of 
the problems of Socialism can afford. To discuss the 
changes Yfhich must occur in every department of life, 
in order to render this revolution in Government prac- 
ticable, and to prove that those changes now exist in 
embryo, would be to embrace the whole field of human 
concerns. That is clearly impossible in the compass 
of a lecture. But it is equally impossible to adjust the 
radical changes which I foretell in Government, to the 
notion of the permanency of all other institutions in 
their present forms. What, then, can be done in this 
dilemma ? I am reduced to a method of treating the 
subject which demands apology, both for incomplete- 
ness and apparent dogmatism. I perceive no possible 
method open to me but that of segregating the subject 
of Government from its connection Yfith other depart- 
ments of life, and deducing from principles and rational 
grounds of conjecture, the changes which it is destined 
to undergo ; and when those changes involve the neces- 
sity of other and corresponding changes elsewhere, to 
assert, as it were, dogmatically, without stopping to 
adduce the proofs, that these latter changes are also 
existing in embryo, or actually progressing. 

I return now to the necessities out of which Govern- 
ment grows. These are in the broadest generalization. 
1. To restrain encroachments, and, 2, To manage the 
combined ipxterests of mankind. 

First, with regard to restraining encroachments, and 
enforcing equity. Is there no betcer method of accom- 
plishing this end than force, such as existing Govern- 



44 TRUE CONSTITUTION OF GOVERNMENT. 

ments are organized to apply 1 I affirm that there is.- 
I affirm that a clea,r scientific perception of the point 
at which encroachment begins, in all our manifold pe- 
cuniary and moral relations with each other, an oxact 
idea of the requirements of equity, accepted into the 
public mind, and felt to be capable of a precise appli- 
cation in action, would go tenfold further than arbitrary 
laws and the sanctions of laws can go, in obtaining the 
desired results. In saying this, I mean something 
definite and specific. I have already adverted to the 
discovery of an exact, scientific principle, capable of 
regulating the distribution of wealth, and introducing 
universal equity in pecuniary transactions — an exact 
mathematical guage of honesty — wiiich, when it shall 
have imbued the public mind, and formed the public 
sentiment, and come to regulate the public conduct, 
will secure the products of labor with impartial justice 
to all, and tend to remove alike the temptations and 
the provocations to crime. What that principle does 
in the sphere of commerce, is done in the social and 
ethical spheres by the doctrine of the Sovereignty of 
the Individual. Both give to each his own, for it must 
be continually remembered that the doctrine of the. 
Sovereignty of the Individual demands that I should 
sedulously and religiously respect your Individuality, 
while I vindicate my own. These two ground princi- 
ples, with a few others incident thereto, once accepted 
and indwelling in the minds of men, and controlling 
their action, will dispense with force and forcible Gov- 
ernment. The change which I contemplate in govern- 
mental afiairs rests, therefore, upon these prior or con- 
current changes in the commercial, ethical, and social 



TRUE CONSTITUTION OF GOVERNMENT. 45 

splieres. Statesmen and jurists liave liitlierto dealt 
with eifects instead of causes. They have looked upon 
crime and encroachment of all sorts as a fact to be 
remedied, but never as a phenomenon to be accounted 
for. They have never gone back to inquire what con- 
ditions of existence manufactured the criminal, or pro- 
voked or induced the encroachment. A change in this 
respect is beginning to be observed, for the first time, 
in the present generation. The superiority of preven- 
tion over • cure is barely beginning to be admitted, a 
reform in the methods of thought, which is an incipient 
stage of the revolution in question. The highest type 
of human society in the existing social order is found 
in the parlor. In the elegant and refined reunions of 
the aristocratic classes there is none of the impertinent 
interference of legislation. The Individuality of each 
is fully admitted. Intercourse, therefore, is perfectly 
free. Conyersation is continuous, brilliant, and varied. 
Groups are formed according to attraction. They are 
continuously broken up, and re-formed through the 
operation of the same subtile and all-pervading influence. 
Mutual deference pervades all classes, and the most 
perfect harmony, ever yet attained, in complex human 
relations, prevails under precisely those circumstances 
which Legislators and Statesmen dread as the condi- 
tions of inevitable anarchy and confusion. If there are 
laws of etiquette at all, they are mere suggestions of 
principles admitted into and judged of for himself or 
herself, by each individual mind. 

Is it conceivable that in all the future progress of 
humanity, with all the innumerable elements of develop- 
ment which the present age is unfolding, society gener- 



46 TRUE CONSTITUTION OF GOVERNMENT. 

ally, and in all its relations, will not attain as liigli a 
grade of perfection as certain portions of society, in 
certain special relations, have already attained 1 

Suppose the intercourse of the parlor to be regulated 
by specific legislation. Let the time which each gen- 
tleman shall be allowed to speak to each lady be fixed 
by law ; the position in which they should sit or stand 
be precisely regulated ; the subjects which they shall 
be allowed to speak of, and the tone of voice and ac- 
companying gestures with which each may be treated, 
carefully defined, all under pretext of preventing dis- 
order and encroachment upon each other's privileges 
and rights, and can any thing be conceived better cal- 
culated or more certain to convert social intercourse 
into intolerable slavery and hopeless confusion ? 

It is precisely in this manner that municipal legisla- 
tion interferes with and prevents the natural organiza- 
tion of society. Mankind legislate themselves into 
confusion by their efibrt to escape it. Still, a state of 
society may perhaps be conceived, so low in social de- 
velopment that even the intercourse of the parlor could 
not be prudently indulged, without a rigid code of 
deportment, and the presence of half a dozen bailiffs to 
preserve order. I will not deny, therefore, that Gov- 
ernment in municipal affairs is, in like manner, a tem- 
porary necessity of undeveloped society. What I affirm, 
is, that along with, and precisely in proportion to, the 
social advancement of a people, that necessity ceases, 
so far as concerns the first of the causes of Government 
referred to — the necessity for restraining encroachments. 

The second demand for Government is to manage 
the combined interests of society. But combined or 



TRUE CONSTITUTION OF GOVERNMENT. 47 

amalgamated interests of all sorts are opposed to Indi- 
viduality. The Individuality of interests sliould be as 
absolute as that of persons. Hence the number and 
extent of combined interests will be reduced with every 
step in the genuine progress of mankind. The cost 
principle will furnish in its operation the means of con- 
ducting the largest human enterprises, under Individual 
guidance and control. It strips capital of its iniquitous 
privilege of oppressing labor by earning an income of 
its own, in the form of interest, and places it freely at 
the disposal of those who will preserve and administer 
it best, upon the sole condition of returning it unim- 
paired, but without augmentation, at the appropriate 
time, to its legitimate owners. 

A glance at the functions which Government actually 
performs, and the specific tendencies which society now 
exhibits in relation to those functions, will confirm the 
statement that all, or most of the combined interests 
of society will be finally disintegrated and committed 
to individual hands. It is one of the acknowledged 
functions of Government until now, to regulate com- 
merce. But, as we have already seen, the spirit of the 
age demands that Government shall let commerce alone. 
In this country, an important Bureau of the Executive 
Department of Government is the Land Office. But 
the public domain is, we have seen, already demanded 
by the people, and the Land Office will have to be dis- 
pensed with. The Army and Navy refer to a state of 
international relations of which every thing begins to 
prognosticate the final extinction. The universal ex- 
tension of commerce and intercommunication, by means 
of steam navigation, raikoads, and the magnetic tele- 



48 TRUE CONSTITUTION OF GOVERNMENT, 

graphj together with the general progress of enlighten- 
ment, are rapidly obliterating natural boundaries, and 
blending the human family into one. The cessation of 
war is becoming a familiar idea, and with the cessation of 
war, armies and navies will cease of course to be required. 
It is probable that even the existing languages of the earth 
will melt, v/ithin another century or two, into one com- 
mon and universal tongue, from the same causes, oper- 
ating upon a more extended scale, as those which have 
blended the dialects of the different counties of Eng- 
land, of the different departments of France, and of the 
kingdoms of Spain into the English, the French, and 
the Spanish languages respectively. We have premo- 
nitions of the final disbanding of the armies and navies 
of the world in the substitution of a citizen militia, in 
the growing unpopularity of even that ridiculous shadow 
of an army, the militia itself, and in the substitution 
of the merchant steamship with merely an incidental 
w^arlike equipment instead of the regular man-of-war. 
The Navy and War Departments of Government Avill 
thus be dispensed with. The State Department now 
takes charge of the intercourse of the nation with for- 
eign nations. But with the cessation of war there will 
be no foreign nations, and consequently the State or 
Foreign Department may in turn take itself away. 
Patriotism will expand into philanthropy. Nations 
like sects will dissolve into the individuals who com- 
pose them. Every man will be his own nation, and 
preserving his own sovereignty, and respecting the sov- 
ereignty of others, he will be a nation at peace with 
all others. The term, " a man of the world," reveals 
the fact that it is the cosmopolite in manners and sen- 



TRUE CONSTITUTION OF GOVERNMENT. 49 

timents whom the world ah-eady recognizes as- the true 
gentleman — the type and leader of civilization. The 
Home Department of Government is a common recep- 
tacle of odds and ends, every one of whose functions 
would be better managed by Individual enterprise, and 
might take itself away with advantage any day. The 
Treasury Department is merely a kind of secretory 
gland, to provide the means of carrying on the ma- 
chinery of the other Departments. When they are 
removed, it will of course have no apology left for con- 
tinuing to exist. Finances for administering Govern- 
ment will no longer be wanted when there is no longer 
any Government to administer. The Judiciary is, in 
fact, a branch of the Executive, and falls of course, 
as we have seen, with the introduction of principles 
which will put an end to aggression and crime. The 
Legislature enacts what the Executive and Judiciary 
execute. If the execution itself is unnecessary, the 
enactment of course is no less so. Thus piece by 
piece, we dispose of the whole complicated fabric of 
Government, which looms up in such gloomy grandeur, 
overshadowing the freedom of the Individual, impress- 
ing the minds of men with a false conviction of its ne- 
cessity, as if it were, like the blessed light of day, in- 
dispensable to life and happiness. 

There is abundant evidence to the man of reflection, 
that what we have thus performed in imagination is 
destined to be rapidly accomplished in fact. There is, 
perhaps, no one consideration which looks more directly 
to that consummation, than the growing unpopularity 
of politics, in every phase of the subject. In America 
this fact is probably more obvious than any where 
5 



50 TRUE CONSTITUTION OF GOVERNMENT. 

else. The pursuit of politics is almost entirely aban- 
doned to lawyers, and generally it is the career of those 
who are least successful in that profession. The gen- 
eral repugnance of the masses of mankind for that class 
of the communityj by which they testify an instinctive 
appreciation of the outrage upon humanity committed 
by the attempt to reduce the impertinent interference 
of legislation to a science, and to practice it as a learned 
profession, is intensified, in the case of the politician, 
by the element of contempt. In the sham Democracies, 
wherein majorities govern, the condition of the office- 
seeker and of the office-holder is alike and peculiarly 
unfortunate. Defeated, he is consigned unceremoni- 
ously, by popular opinion, to the category of the " poor 
devil." Successful, he is denounced as a political hack. 
His position is pre-eminently precarious. Whatever 
veneration attaches still to the manufacturers and exec- 
utors of law among us is mostly traditionary. So much 
of the popular estimation of the men whose business 
is governing their fellow-men, as is the indigenous 
growth of our institutions, is essentially disrespectful. 
The politician, in a republic, is a man whose business 
it is to please every body, and who, consequently, has 
no personality of his own, and this, here and now, in a 
country and age in which distinctive personality is 
becoming the type and model of society. It is regarded 
to-day as a misfortune, in the families of respectable 
tradespeople, if a son of any promise has an unlucky 
turn for political preferment. Those who execute the 
laws are in little better plight than those who make 
them. Recently, throughout most of the States, when 
changes have been made in the fundamental law, the 



TBUE CONSTITUTION OF GOVERNMENT. 51 

tenure of office of judges of all ranks has been reduced 
to a short period of from two to four years, and the 
office rendered elective. Such is the fearful descent 
upon which the dignity of powdered wigs is fairly 
launched in Republican America, Judges, Chancellors, 
and Chief Justices entering the canvass, at short inter- 
vals, for returns to the Bench, and shaking hands with 
greasy citizens as the price of judicial authority. It is 
said that familiarity breeds contempt, or that no man 
is great to his valet-de-chambre. When the inhabitants 
of a heathen country begin to treat their priests and 
their wooden divinities with contemptuous familiarity, 
wise men see that the power of Paganism is broken, 
and the Medicine-man, the Fetish, or the Juggernaut 
must soon give place to some more rational conception 
of the religious idea. At the ratio of depreciation act- 
ually progressing, office-holding of all sorts, in these 
United States, from the president down to the constable, 
will, in a few years more, be ranked in the public mind 
as positively disreputable. In the higher condition of 
society, toward which mankind is unconsciously advanc- 
ing, men will shun all responsibility for, and arbitrary 
control over the conduct of others, as sedulously as 
during past ages they have sought them as the chief 
good. Washington declined to be made king, and the 
whole world has not ceased to make the welkin ring 
with laudations of the disinterested act. The time 
will come yet, when the declinature, on all hands, of 
every species of governmental authority over others, 
will not even be deemed a virtue, but simply the plain 
dictate of enlightened self-interest. The sentiment of 
the poet will then be recognized as an axiom of philosophy, 



52 TRUE CONSTITUTION OF GOVERNMENT. 

'* Whoever mounts the throne — King, Priest, or Prophet — 
Man alike shall groan." 

Carlyle complains, in the bitterness of his heart, that 
the true kings and governors of mankind have retired 
in disgust from the task of governing the world, and 
betaken themselves to the altogether private business 
of governing themselves. Whenever the world at large 
shall become as wise as they, when all men shall be 
content to govern themselves merely, then, and not till 
then, will " The True Constitution of Government" be- 
gin to be installed. Carlyle has but discovered the fact 
that good men are withdrawing from politics, without 
penetrating the rationale of the phenomenon. He may 
call upon them in vain till he is hoarse, to return to 
the arena of a contest which has been waged for some 
six thousand years or so, with continuous defeat, at a 
time when they are beginning to discover that the whole 
series of bloody conflicts has been fought with windmills 
instead of giants, and that what the world Yfants, in 
the way of government, is letting alone. 

But what then'? Have we arrived at the upshot of 
the whole matter when we have, in imagination, swept 
all the actual forms of Government out of existence'? 
Is human society, in its mature and normal condition, 
to be a mere aggregation of men and wom.en, standing 
upon the unrelieved dead level of universal equality'? Is 
there to be no homage, no rank, no honors, no transcend- 
ent influence, no power, in fine, exerted by any one man 
over his fellow-men '? Will there be nothing substan- 
tially corresponding to, and specifically substituted for, 
what is now known among men as Human Government? 

This is the question to which we are finally conducted 



TRUE CONSTITUTION OF GOVERNMENT. 63 

by the current of our investigations, and to this question 
I conceive the answer to be properly affirmative. Had 
I not believed so, there would have been no propriety 
in the title, " The True Constitution of Government," 
under which I announced this discourse. It might be 
thought by some a sufficient answer to the question, 
that principles, and not men, will then constitute the 
Government of mankind. So vague a statement, how- 
ever, does not give complete satisfaction to the inquisi- 
tive mind, nor does it meet the interrogatory in all its 
rarying forms. We wish to know what will be the 
positions, relatively to each other, into which men will 
be naturally thrown by the operation of that perfect 
liberty which will result from the prevalence and toler- 
d.tion of universal Individuality. We desire to know 
this especially, now, with reference to that class of the 
mutual relations of men which will correspond most 
exactly to the relations of the governors and the gov- 
erned. 

Negatively, it is certain that in such a state of so- 
ciety as that which we are now contemplating, no in- 
fluence will be tolerated, in the place of Government, 
which is maintained or exerted by force in any, even the 
subtlest, forms of involuntary compulsion. But there 
is still a sense in which men are said to exert power — a 
sense in which the wills of the governor and the gov- 
erned concur, and blend, and harmonize with each 
other. It is in such a sense as this, that the great or- 
ator is said to control the minds of his auditory, or that 
some matchless queen of song sways an irresistible in- 
fluence over the hearts of men. When mankind grad- 
uate out of the period of brute force, that man will be 
5* 



64 TRUE CONSTITUTION OF GOVERNMENT. 

the greatest hero and conqueror who levies the heaviest 
tribute of homage by excellence of achievement in any 
department of human performance. The avenues to 
distinction will not be then, as now, open only to the 
few. Each individual will truly govern the minds, and 
hearts, and conduct of others. Those who have the 
most power to impress themselves upon the community 
in which they live, vfill govern in larger, and those who 
have less will govern in smaller spheres. All will be 
priests and kings, serving at the innumerable altars 
and sitting upon the thrones of that manifold hierarchy, 
the foundations of which God himself has laid in the 
constitution of man. Genius, talent, industry, discov- 
ery, the power to please, every development of Indi- 
viduality, in fine, which meets the approbation of an- 
other, will be freely recognized as the divine anointing 
which constitutes him a sovereign over others — a sov- 
ereign having sovereigns for his subjects — subjects 
whose loyalty is proved and known, because they are 
ever free to transfer their fealty to other lords. With 
the growing development of Individuality even in this 
age, new spheres of honorable distinction are continu- 
ally evolved. The accredited heroes of our times are 
neither politicians nor warriors. It is the discoverers 
of great principles, the projectors of beneficent designs, 
and the executors of magnificent undertakings of all 
sorts who, even now, command the homage of mankind. 
While politics are falling into desuetude and contempt, 
while war, from being the admiration of the world is 
rapidly becoming its abhorrence, the artist and the art- 
isan are rising into relative importance and estimation. 
Even the undistinguished workers, as they have hith- 



TRUE CONSTITUTION OF GOVERNMENT. 55 

erto been, shall hereafter hold seats as Cabinet Minis- 
ters in the new hierarchical government, which shall 
shadow, in those days, with its overspreading magnifi- 
cence, the dwellings of regenerated humanity. In that 
stupendous administration, extending from the greatest 
down to the least things of human concernment, there 
shall be no lack of functionaries and no limit upon pat- 
ronage. Of that social state, which opens the avenues 
of all honorable pursuits to all, upon terms of equity 
and mutual co-operation, it may be truly said, as was 
said by the Great Teacher, when speaking of another 
kingdom — if indeed it be another — " In my Father's 
house there are many mansions.'' The laudable am- 
bition of all will then be fully gratified. There will 
be no defeated candidates in the political campaigns of 
that day. Where the interests of all are identical, 
even the superiority of another is success, and the 
glory of another is a personal triumph. 

A superficial observer might judge that there was 
more prosperity and power in a petty principality of 
Germany than there is in the United States of Ameri- 
ca, because he sees more pomp and magnificence sur- 
rounding the court of a puppet prince, whom men call 
the ruler of that people. No one but an equally su- 
perficial observer, will mistake the phantom, called 
Government, which resides in the Halls and Depart- 
ments at Washington — the mere ghost of what such a 
Government once was, in its palmy days of despotism — 
for a nearer approximation to the true organization of 
Government, than that natural arrangement of society 
which divides and distributes the functions of governing 
into ten thousand Departments and Bureaus at the 



56 TRUE CONSTITUTION OP GOVERNMENT. 

homes, in the workshops, and at the universities of the 
people. 

If that trumpery Government be called such, be- 
cause it performs important public functions, then have 
we distinguished private individuals among us who are 
already pre-eminently more truly Governors than they. 
If the concern at Washington is legitimately denomin- 
ated a Government of the people, because it controls and 
regulates a Post Office Department, for example, then are 
the Harndens and Adamses Governors too, for they con- 
trol and regulate a Package Express Department, which 
is a greater and more difficult thing. They carry bigger 
bundles, and carry them farther, and deliver them with 
more regularity and dispatch. It is stated, upon autho- 
rity which I presume to be reliable, that Adams & Co.'s 
Express is the most extensive organization of any sort 
in the world — that it is, in fact, absolutely world-wide ; 
and yet it is strictly an individual concern. As an in- 
stance of the superiority of administration in the pri- 
vate enterprise over the national combination, I was 
myself at Washington during the last winter, when the 
mails were interrupted by the breaking up of a railroad 
bridge between Baltimore and Philadelphia, and when, 
for nearly two weeks, the newspapers of the Commercial 
Metropolis were regularly delayed, one whole day, on 
their way to the Political Metropolis of the country, while 
the same papers came regularly and promptly through 
every day by the private expresses. The President, 
Members of Congress, and Cabinet Ministers, even the 
Postmaster General himself, was regularly served with 
the news by the enterprise of a private individual, who 
performed one of the functions of the Government^ in op- 



TRUE CONSTITUTION OF GOVERNMENT. 57 

position to the Government, and better than the Govern- 
ment, levying tribute upon the very functionary of the 
Government who was elected, consecrated, and anointed 
for the performance of that identical function. Who, 
then, was the true Governor and Cabinet Minister, the 
Postmaster General, who was daily dispatching messen- 
gers to rectify the irregularity, and issuing bulletins to 
explain and apologize for it, or the Adams Express 
man, who conquered the difficulty, and served the pub- 
lic, when the so-called Government failed to do if? 
The fault is, that the Government goes by rule, pre- 
ordained in the form of law, and consequently has no 
capacity for adapting itself to the Individuality of an 
unforeseen contingency. It has not the Individual de- 
ciding power and promptitude of action which are ab- 
solutely necessary for such occasions. 

It is the actual performance of the function which is 
all that there is good in the idea of Government. AH 
that there is besides that, is mere restriction, and con- 
sequent annoyance and oppression of the public, as 
when our Government undertook to suppress those pri- 
vate expresses, which serve the public better than 
it. The point, then, is this : I affirm that every use- 
ful function, or nearly every one which is now perform- 
ed by Government, and the use of which will remain 
in the more advanced conditions of mankind, toward 
which the present tendencies of society converge, can 
be better performed by the Individual, self-elected and 
self-authorized, than by any constituted Government 
whatsoever ; and further, since it is the performance of 
the function, and the influence which the performance 
of the function exerts over the conduct, and to the ad- 



58 TaUE CONSTITUTION OF GOVEHNMENT. 

vantage of men, whicli makes the true Governor, it 
follows, I affirm, that the Adams Express man was, in 
the case I have mentioned, the true Governor, and that 
the Postmaster General, and the whole innumerable 
gang of Legislators and Executors of the law at his 
back, were the sham Governors, such as the world is 
getting ready to discharge on perpetual furlough. 

It is possible that there may be a few comparatively 
unimportant interests of mankind which are so essen- 
tially combined in their nature that some species of 
artificial organization will always be necessary for their 
management. I do not, for example, see how the pub- 
lic highways can be properly laid out, and administered 
by the private individual. Let us resort, then, to sci- 
ence for the solution of this anomaly, for every subject 
has its science, the true social relations of mankind as 
well as all others. The inexorable natural law which 
governs this subject is this : that nature demands every- 
where an individual lead. Every combined interest 
must therefore come ultimately to be governed by an 
individual mind, to be intrusted, in other words, to a 
despotism. It is the recognition of this law which is 
embodied in the political axiom, that " power is con- 
stantly stealing from the hands of the many into the 
hands of the few." It is this scientific principle, lying 
down in the very nature of things, which constitutes 
both the rationale of monarchy and its appropriate 
apology. The lesson of wisdom to be deduced from 
this principle is not, however, as our political leaders 
have preached to us, that " the price of liberty is eter- 
nal vigilance" — a liberty which is not worth possession 
if it can not be enjoyed in security, and a vigilance 



THUE CONSTITUTION OF GOVERNMENT, 59 

which is only required to be exercised in order to defeat 
the legitimate operation of the most universal and fun- 
damental law of nature. The true lesson of political 
wisdom is simply this : that no interests should ever be 
intrusted to a combination, which are too important to 
be surrendered understandingly and voluntarily to the 
guidance of a despotism. Government, therefore, in 
the present sense of the term, can never, from the very 
essential nature of the case, be compatible with the 
safety of the liberties of the people, until the sphere 
of its authority is reduced to the very narrowest dimen- 
sions — never until the arbitrary institution of Govern- 
ment shall have shrunk into a mere commission — a 
board of overseers of roads and canals, and such other 
unimportant interests as experience shall prove, can 
not be so readily managed by irresponsible individual 
action. 

It is this latter alone whicti will then truly merit the 
imposing title of Government. There is a sense, as I 
have said, in which that term is fairly applicable to the 
natural organization of the interrelations of men. If 
Genin, or Leary, or Knox devises a new fashion for 
hats, and manufactures hats in the style so devised, 
and the style pleases you and me, and we buy the hats 
and wear them, therein is an example, an humble ex- 
ample, perhaps you will think, but still a genuine ex- 
ample of true Government. The individual hatter is 
self-elected to his function. I, in giving him the pref- 
erence over another, express my conviction of his fit- 
ness for that function, of his superiority over others. 
I vote for him. I give him my suffrage. I confirm his 
election The abstract statement of the true order of 



60 TRUE CONSTITUTION OF GOVERNMENT. 

Government, then, is tliis : it is that Government in 
■vyhich the rulers elect themselves ^ mid are voted for 
afterward. 

The uncouth and unscrupulous despot proclaims that 
he governs mankind in his own right — the right of the 
strongest. The modernized and somewhat civilized 
despot announces that he governs by divine right ; that 
he is the God-appointed ruler of the people, by virtue 
of the fact that he finds himself a ruler at all. The 
more modern Democratic Governor claims to rule by 
virtue of the will of a majority. The true Governor 
rules by virtue of all these authorizations combined. 
He rules in his own right, because he is self-elected, 
and exercises his function in accordance with his own 
choice. He rules by authorization of the majority, be- 
cause it is he who receives the suffrages of the largest 
number who governs most extensively, and, finally, he, 
of all men, can be appropriately said to rule by divine 
right. His own judgment of his own fitness for his 
function, confirmed by the approval of those whom he 
desires to govern, are the highest possible evidence of 
the divinity of his claim, of the fact, in other words, 
that he was created and designed by God himself for 
the most perfect performance of that particular func- 
tion. 

What, then, society has to do, is to remove the ob- 
structions to this universal self-election, by every Indi-. 
vidua], of himself, to that function which his own con- 
sciousness of his own adaptation prompts him to believe 
to be his peculiar God-intended office in life. Throw 
open the polls, make the pulpit, the school-room, the 
workshop, the manufactory, the shipyard, and the store- 



TRUE CONSTITUTION OF GOVERNMENT, 61 

house the universal ballot-boxes of the people. Make 
every day an election day, and every human being both 
a; candidate and a voter, exercising each day and hour 
his full and unlimited franchise. 

In order to this consummation two conditions are in- 
dispensably necessary : the first is the cordial and uni- 
versal acceptance of this very principle of the absolute 
Sovereignty of the Individual — each claiming his own 
Sovereignty, and each religiously respecting that of all 
others. The second is the equitable interchange -of the 
products of labor, measured by the scientific law relat- 
ing to that subject to which I have referred, and the 
consequent security to each of the full enjoyment and 
unlimited control of just that portion of wealth which 
he or she produces, the efiect of which will be the in- 
troduction of general comfort and security, the moder- 
ation of avarice, and the supply of a definite knovfl- 
edge of the limits of rights and encroachments. 

The instrumentalities necessary for hastening the 
adoption of these principles are likewise, chiefly, two : 
these are, first, a more intense longing for true and 
harmonic relations ; and, secondly, a clear intellectual 
conception of the principles themselves, and of the 
consequences which would flow from their adoption. 
The first is a highly religious aspiration, the second is 
a process of scientific induction. One is the soul and 
the other the sensible body, the spiritual substance, 
and the corporeal form of social harmony. The teach- 
ings of Christianity have inspired the one, the illumin- 
ation of science must provide the other. Intellectual 
resources brought to the aid of Desire constitute the 



6 



62 TRUE CONSTITUTION OF GOVERNMENT. 

marriage of Wisdom with Love, whose progeny is Hap- 
piness. 

When from the lips of truth one mighty breath 
Shall, like a whirlwind, scatter in its breeze 
The whole dark pile of human mockeries. 
Then shall the race of mind commence on earth. 
And, starting fresh, as from a second birth, 
Man, in the sunshine of the world's new spring, 
Shall walk transparent, like some holy thing. 

It would, perhaps, be injudicious to conclude this 
exhibit of the doctrine of the Individual Sovereignty, 
without a more formal statement of the scientific limit 
upon the exercise of that Sovereignty which the princi- 
ple itself supplies. If the principle were predicated 
of one Individual alone, the assertion of his Sovereignty, 
or, in other words, of his absolute right to do as he 
pleases, or to pursue his own happiness in his own way, 
would be confessedly to invest him with the attributes 
of despotism over others. But the doctrine which I 
have endeavored to set forth is not that. It is the 
assertion of the concurrent Sovereignty of all men, and 
of all women, and, within the limits I am about to 
state, of all children. This concurrence of Sovereignty 
necessarily and appropriately limits the Sovereignty of 
each. Each is Sovereign only within his own domin- 
ions, because he can not extend the exercise of his Sov- 
eignty beyond those limits without trenching upon, and 
interfering with, the prerogatives of others, whose Sov- 
ereignty the doctrine equally affirms. What, then, con- 
stitutes the boundaries of one's own dominions ? This 
is a pregnant question for the happiness of mankind, 
and one which has never, until now, been specifically 



TRUE CONSTITUTION OF GOVERNMENT. 63 

and scientificall}^ asked or answered. The answer, if 
correctly given, will fix the precise point . at which 
Sovereignty ceases and encroachment begins ; and that 
knowledge, as I have said, accepted into the public 
mind, will do more than laws, and the sanctions of 
laws, to regulate individual conduct and intercourse. 
The limitation is this : every Individual is the rightful 
Sovereign over his own conduct in all things, whenever, 
and just so far as, the consequences of his conduct can 
be assumed by himself ; or, rather, inasmuch as no one 
objects to assuming agreeable consequences, whenever 
and as far as this is true of the disagreeable conse- 
quences. For disagreeable consequences, endurance, 
or burden of all sorts, the term " Cost" is elected as a 
scientific technicality. Hence the exact formula of the 
doctrine, with its inherent limitation, may be stated 
thus : " The Sovereignty of the Individual j to he exer- 
cised at his own cost.^^ 

This limitation of the doctrine being inherent, and 
necessarily involved in the idea of the Sovereignty of 
all, may possibly be left with safety, after the limita- 
tion is understood, to implication, and the simple Sov- 
ereignty of the Individual be asserted as the inclusive 
formula. The limitation has never been distinctly and 
clearly set forth in the announcements which have been 
made either of the Protestant or the Democratic creed. 
Protestantism promulgates the one single, bald, unmod- 
ified proposition, that in all matters of conscience the 
Individual judgment is the sole tribunal, from which 
there is no appeal. As against this there is merely the 
implied right in others to resist when the conscience of 
the Individual leads him to attack or encroach upon 



64 TRUE CONSTITUTION OF GOVERNMENT. 

them. It is the same with the Democratic prerogatire 
of the "pursuit of happiness." The limitation has 
been felt rather than distinctly and scientifically pro- 
pounded. 

It results from this analysis, that wherever such cir- 
cumstances exist that a person can not exercise his own 
Individuality and Sovereignty without throwing the 
" cost," or burden, of his actions upon others, the 
principle has so far to be compromised. Such circum- 
stances arise out of connected or amalgamated interests, 
and the sole remedy is disconnection. The exercise of 
Sovereignty is the exercise of the deciding power. 
Whoever has to bear the cost should have the deciding 
power in every case. If one has to bear the cost of 
another's conduct, and just so far as he has to do so, 
he should have the deciding power over the conduct of 
the other. Hence dependence and close connections 
of interest demand continual concessions and compro- 
mises. Hence, too, close connection and mutual de- 
pendence is the legitimate and scientific root of Despot- 
ism, as disconnection or Individualization of interests is 
the root of freedom and emancipation. 

If the close combination, which demands the sur- 
render of our will to another, is one instituted by na- 
ture, as in the case of the mother and the infant, then 
the relation is a true one, notwithstanding. The sur- 
render is based upon the fact that the child is not yet 
strictly an Individual. The unfolding of its Individ- 
uality is gradual, and its growing development is pre- 
cisely marked, by the increase of its ability to assume 
the consequences of its own acts. If the close combi- 
nation of interests is artificial or forced, then the par- 



TRUE CONSTITUTIOir OF GOVGRNMENT. 65 

ties exist toward each other in false relations, and to 
false relations no true principle can apply. Conse- 
quentty, in such relations, the Sovereignty of the Indi- 
vidual must be abandoned. The law of such relations 
is collision and conflict, to escape which, while remain- 
ing in the relations, there is no other means but 
mutual concessions and surrenders of the selfhood. 
Hence, inasmuch as the interests of mankind have 
never yet been scientifically individualized by the oper- 
ations of an equitable commerce, and the limits of en- 
croachment never scientifically defined, the axioms of 
morality, and even the provisions of positive legisla- 
tion, have been doubtless appropriate adaptations to 
the ages of false social relations to which they have 
been applied, as the cataplasm or the sinapism may be 
for disordered conditions of the human system. We 
must not, however, reason, in either case, from that 
temporary adaptation in a state of disease, to the healthy 
condition of society or the Individual. Much that is 
relatively good is only good as a necessity growing out 
of evil. The greater good is the removal of the evil 
altogether. The almshouse and the foundling hospital 
may be necessary and laudable charities, but they can 
only be regarded by the enlightened philanthropist as 
the stinking apothecary's salve, or the dead flies, applied 
to the bruises and sores of the body politic. Admit- 
ted temporary necessities, they are ofiensive to the nos- 
trils of good taste. The same reflection is applicable 
to every species of charity. The oppressed classes do 
not want charity but justice, and with simple justice 
the necessity for charity will disappear or be reduced to 
a minimum. So in the matter before us. The disposi- 
6* 



66 TRUE CONSTITUTION OF GOVERNMENT. 

tion to forego one's own pleasures to secure the happiness 
of others is a positive virtue in all those close connec- 
tions of interest which render such a sacrifice necessary, 
and inasmuch as such have hitherto always been the cir- 
cumstances of the Individual in society, this abnegation 
of selfhood is the highest virtue which the world has 
hitherto conceived. But these close connections of in- 
terest are themselves wrong, for the very reason that they 
demand this sacrifice and surrender of what ought to 
be enjoyed and developed to the highest extent. The 
truest and the highest virtue, in the true relations of 
men, will be the fullest unfolding of all the Individual- 
ities of each, and the truest relations of men are those 
which permit that unfolding of the Individualities of 
each, not only without collision or injury to any, but 
with mutual advantage to all — the reconciliation of the 
Individual and the interests of the Individual with so- 
ciety and the interests of society — that composite har- 
mony, or, if you will, unity, of the whole, which results 
from the discrete unity and distinctive Individuality of 
each particular monad in the complex natural organiza- 
tion of society. 

The doctrine of Individuality, and the Sovereignty 
of the Individual, involves, then, at this point, two of 
the most important scientific consequences, the one 
serving as a guiding principle to the true solution of 
existing evils in society, and to the exodus o«t of the pre- 
vailing confusion, and the other as a. guiding principle 
of deportment in existing society, while those evils re- 
main. The first is, that the Sovereignty of the Indi- 
vidual, or, in other words absolute personal liberty, 
can only_be enjoyed along with tJbe entire disintegra- 



TRUE CONSTITUTION OF GOVERNMENT. 67 

tion of combined or amalgamated interests ; and here 
the "cost principle" comes in to point out how that 
disintegration can and must take place, not as isolation, 
but along with, and absolutely productive of, the utmost 
conceivable harmony and co-operation. The second is, 
that while people are forced, by the existing conditions 
of society, to remain in the close connections resulting 
from amalgamated interests, there is no alternative but 
compromise and mutual concession, or an absolute sur- 
render upon one side or the other. The innate Indi- 
vidualities of persons are such that every calculation 
based upon the identity of tastes, or opinions, or beliefs, 
or judgments, of even so many as two persons, is abso- 
lutely certain to be defeated, and as Nature demands 
an Individuality of lead, one must necessarily surren- 
der to the other whenever the relation demands an 
identity of action. To quarrel with that necessity is a 
folly. To deny its existence is a delusion. To enter 
such combinations with the expectation that liberty and 
Individuality can be enjoyed in them, is a sore aggrava- 
tion of the evil. Mutual recrimination is added to the 
inevitable annoyance of mutual restriction. Hence a 
right understanding of the scientific conditions under 
which alone Individuality can be indulged, a clear and 
intelligent perception of the fact that the collisions and 
mutual contraventions of the combined relation result 
from nothing wrong in the associated Individuals, but 
from the wrong of the relation itself, goes far to intro- 
duce the spirit of mutual forbearance and toleration, 
and thus to soften the acrimony and alleviate the burden 
of the present imperfect and unscientific institutions of 
eociety. 



68 TRUE CONSTITUTION OF GOVERNMENT. 

Hence, again, as self-sacrifice and denial to one's self 
of one's own abstract rights is an absolute necessity 
of the existing order of things, there is a mntual neces- 
sity that we claim that of each other, and, if need be, 
that we enforce the claim. Herein lies the apology for 
our existing Governments, and for force as a temporary 
necessity, and hence the doctrine of Individuality, and 
the Sovereignty of the Individual, while the most ultra- 
radical doctrine in theory and final purpose ever pro- 
mulgated in the world, is at the same time eminently con- 
servative in immediate practice. While it teaches, in 
principle, the prospective disruption of nearly every 
existing institution, it teaches concurrently, as matter 
of expediency, a patient and philosophical endurance 
of the evils around us, while we labor assiduously for 
their removal. So far from quarreling with existing 
Government, when it is put upon the footing of tempo- 
rary expediency, as distinguished from abstract princi- 
ple and final purpose, it sanctions and confirms it. It 
has no sympathies with aimless and fruitless struggles, 
the recrimination of different classes in society, nor 
with merely anarchical and destructive onslaughts upon 
existing institutions. It proposes no abrupt and sud- 
den shock to existing society. It points to a scientific, 
gradual, and perfectly peaceable substitution of new 
and harmonious relations for those which are confess- 
edly beset, to use the mildest expression, by the most 
distressing embarrassments. 

I will conclude by warning you against one other 
misconception, which is very liable to be entertained 
by those to whom Individuality is for the first time 
presented as the great remedy for the prevalent evils 



TRUE CONSTITUTION OF GOVERNMENT 69 

of the social state. I mean tlie conception tliat Indi- 
viduality lias something in common with isolation, or 
the severance of all personal relations with one's fellow- 
men. Those who entertain this idea will object to it, 
because they desire, as they will say, co-operation and 
brotherhood. That objection is conclusive proof that 
they have not rightly comprehended the nature of In- 
dividuality, or else they would have seen that it is 
through the Individualization of interests alone that har- 
monic co-operation and universal brotherhood can be 
attained. It is not the disruption of relationships, 
but the creation of distinct and independent personali- 
ties between whom relations can exist. The more dis- 
tinct the personalities, and the more cautiously they 
are guarded and preserved, the more intimate the rela- 
tions may be, without collision or disturbance. Persons 
may be completely individualized in their interests who 
are in the most immediate personal contact, as in the 
case of the lodgers at an hotel, or they may have com- 
bined or amalgamated interests, and be remote from 
each other, as in the case of partners residing in differ- 
ent countries. The players at shuttlecock co-operate 
in friendly competition with each other, while facing 
and opposing each other, each fully directing his own 
movements, which they could not do if their arms and 
legs were tied together, nor even if they stood side hy 
side. The game of life is one which demands the 
same freedom of movement on the part of every player, 
and every attempt to procure harmonious co-operation 
by fastening different individuals in the same position, 
will defeat its own object. 

In opposing combinations or amalgamated interests, 



70 TRUE CONSTITUTION OF GOVERNMENT. 

Individuality does not oppose, but favors and conducts 
toward co-operation. But, on the other hand, Individ- 
uality alone is not sufficient to insure co-operation. It 
is an essential element of co-operative harmony, but 
not the only one. It is one principle in the science of 
society, but it is not the whole of that science. Other 
elements are indispensable to the right working of the 
system, one of which has been adverted to. The error 
has been in supposing that because the Individuality 
which is already realized in society has not ultimated 
in harmony, that Individuality itself is in fault. In- 
stead of destroying this one true element of order, and 
returning to a worse condition from which we have 
emerged, the scientific method is to investigate f urther, 
and find what other or complimentary principles are 
necessary to complete the well-working of the social 
machinery. 

Regretting that the whole circle of the new principles 
of society, of which the Sovereignty of the Individual 
is one, can not be presented at once, I invite you. La- 
dies and Gentlemen, as occasion may offer, to inform 
yourselves of what they are, that you may see the subject 
in its entire connection of parts. In the mean time I 
submit to your criticism, and the criticism of the world, 
Vfhat I have now offered, with the undoubting convic- 
tion that it will endure the ordeal of the most searching 
investigation, and with the hope that however it may 
shock the prejudices of earlier education, you will in 
the end sanction and approve it^ and aid, by your devoted 
exertions, the inauguration of The True Constitution of 
Government, with its foundations laid in the Sovereignty 
of the Individual. 



COST THE LIMIT OF PRICE 



t §m\m d §nh^,-Mn. 2. 



COST THE LIMIT OE PEICE : 

A 

SCIENTIFIC MEASURE OF HONESTY IN TRADE, 

AS ONE OF 

THE FUNDAMENTAL PRINCIPLES 

l-N THE 

SOLUTION OF THE SOCIAL PROBLEM. 

Br 
STEPHEN PEARL ANDREWS. 



NEW YORK: 
FOWLERS AND WELLS, PUBLISHERS, 

CLINTON HALL, 131 NASSAU STREET. 

Bo?to:i, l-!-3 \V;,f,liln;;toa-St.3 i b ^ sj. [London, No. 1-J2 Strand 



Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the yeai- 1851, by 

WILLIAM J. BANEH, 

in tne Clerk's Office of the District Court of the Southern District 
of New York. 



8TEBE0TYPED BY WILLIAM J. BANEE, 

201 William Street 



PREFACE. 



The preface of a book is always the last thing written, and 
generally the last thing read. The author is safe, therefore, in 
assuming that he is addressing, in what he eays in this part of 
his work, those who are already familial* With the book itself. 
Availing myself of this presumption, I have a few observations 
to make of a somewhat practical nature in relation to the effects 
upon the conduct of the Individual which the acceptance of the 
p4*incipie herein inculcated should appropriately have. 

At the first blush it seems as if the Cost Principle presented 
the most stringent and inexorable law, binding upon the con- 
science, which was ever announced — as if no man desiring to 
be honest could continue fbr a day in the ordinary intercourse 
of trade and pursuit of profit. The degree to which this im- 
pression will remain with dififerent persons, upon a thorough 
understanding of the whole subject, will be dififerent according 
to their organizations. There are powerful considerations, 
however, to deter any one from making a mai'tyr of himself in 
a fruitless effort to act upon the true principle while living in 
the atmosphere, and surrounded by the conditions of the old 
and false system. 

In the first place, it is impossible, in the nature of things, to 
apply a principle, the essence of which is to regulate the terms 
of reciprocity, where no reciprocity exists. The Equitist who 
should attempt to act upon the Cost Principle in the midst of 
the prevailing system, and should sell his own products with 
scrupulous conscientousness at cost, would be wholly unable to 



Vi PREFACE . 

obtain the products of others at cost in return ; and hence his 
conduct would not procure Equity. He would at most obtain 
the wretched gratification of cheating himself knowingly and 
continuously. There is not space in the few pages of a preface 
to enter into a fundamental statement of the ethical principles 
involved in the temporary continuance in relations of injustice, 
forced upon us by those upon whom whatever of injustice we 
commit, is inflicted. The question involved is the same as that 
of War and Peace. A nation desirous of being at peace with 
all mankind, and tendering such relations to all the world, may, 
nevertheless, be forced into war by the wanton acts of unscru- 
pulous neighbors. Notwithstanding the oversti"ained nicety of 
the sect called Friends, and of non-resistants in such behalf, the 
common sentiment of enlightened humanity is yet in favor of 
resistance against unprovoked aggression, whUe it is at the same 
time in favor of Universal Peace — the entire cessation of all War. 
In like manner, the friends of Equity, the acceptors of the cost 
principle, do not in any case, so far as I am aware, purpose beg- 
garing themselves, or abandoning any positions which give them 
the pecuniary advantage in the existing disharmonic relations of 
society, from any silly or overweening deference even for their 
own principles. They entertain rational and well-considered 
views in relation to the appropriate means of inaugurating the 
reign of Equity. They propose the organization of villages or 
settlements of persons who understand the principle, and desu*e 
to act upon it mutually. They will tender intercourse with 
*' out-siders" upon the same terms; but if the tender is not 
accepted, they wiU then treat with them upon then' own terms, 
so far as it is necessary, or in their judgment best, to treat with 
them at all. They will hold Equity in one hand and "light" in 
the other — Equity for those who will accept Equity and recipro- 
cate it, and the conflict of wits for those who force that issue. 
It is not their design to become either martyrs or dupes; 
martyrdom being, in their opinion, unnecessary, and the other 
alternative adverse to their tastes. 

Still any view of the practical methods of working out the 
principle, which may be here intimated, is of course bindirj^ 



PREFACE. Vll 

Upon no one. I state the spirit in which the principle is at 
present entertained, so far as I know, by those who have ac- 
cepted it. Every individual must be left free, whether as an 
inhabitant of the world at large, or of an equitable village, to act 
under the dictates of his own conscience, his own views of ex- 
pediency, his own sense of what he can afford to sacrifice, in 
order to abide by the principle, rather than sacrifice the principle 
instead; or, in fine, of whatever other regulating influence he is 
in the habit of submitting his conduct to. He must be left 
absolutely free, then, to commit every conceivable breach of the 
principle itself; since absolute freedom is another of the es- 
sential principles of harmonic society. He who is in no freedom 
to do v^n-ong can never, by any possibility, demonsti*ate the dis- 
position to do right; besides, whether the absolute or theoretical 
right is always the practical or relative Tight, is at least a doubt- 
ful question in morals, which each individual must be allowed 
to judge of solely for himself — as of every other question of 
morals and personal conduct whatsoever — assuming the Cost, 
Hence, even in the act of infringing one of our circle of prin- 
ciples, the individual is vindicating another — the Sovereignty 
or THE Individual — and in the fact of his differing from an- 
other, from the majority, or from all others, in the moral charac 
ter of an act, he is merely illustrating another of the same 
circle of principles, namely, Individuality. 

It is found to be the most puzzling of all things, to those who 
commence to examine these principles, beset as they are by the 
fogs of old idoas, that a social reorganization should be proposed 
without any social compact, the necessity of which has been 
alike and universally conceded both by Conservatives and He- 
formers. An illustration may render the matter clear. "We do 
not bring forward a System, a Plan, or a Constitution, to be 
voted on, adopted, or agreed to, by mankind at large, or by any 
set of men whatsoever. Nothing of the -sort ! We point out 
certain principles in the nature of things which relate to the 
order of human society ; in conforming to which mankind will 
find their affairs harmonically adjusted, and in departing from 
which they will run into confusion. The knowledge of these 



ViU PREFACE. 

principles is science. It is the same with them as with the 
principles of Physiology. We teach them as science. We 
do not ask that they shall be voted upon or applied under 
pledges. Man cannot make nor unmake them. So far as 
he knows them, and cordially accepts them as truths, ho 
will be disposed to realize them in act. The human mind has 
a natural appetency for truth. If there are obstacles in the 
way of their realization, those obstacles will differ with the 
circumstances of each individual, and the Individual can alone 
judge of them. Those circumstances may change to-morrow, and 
then his capacity to act will change. His own appreciation of 
the subject may change likewise. There is Individuality there- 
fore in his own different states at different periods. The man 
must be bound by no pledges which imply even so much as that 
he will be himself the same, in any given respect, at any future 
moment of time. It is the evil of compacts that the compact 
becomes sacred and the individual profane — that man is held to 
be made for the Sabbath and not the Sabbath for man. 

Hereupon there is based the claim that these principles con- 
stitute in the appropriate and rigid sense the Science of 
Society. It is the property of science that it does not say 
" By your leave." It exists whether you wiU or no. It re- 
quires neither compacts, constitutions, nor ballot-boxes. It is 
objectively true. It exists in principles and truths. If you 
understand and conform, weU ; if not wo be unto you. The 
consequences will fall upon you and scourge you. Hence the 
government of consequences is itself scientific, which no man- 
made government is. Men have sought for ages to discover the 
science of government ; and lo ! here it is, that men cease totally 
to attempt to govern each other at all ! that they learn to know 
the consequences of their own acts, and that they arrange 
their relations with each other upon such a basis of science that 
the disagreeable consequences shall be assumed by the agent 
himself 



CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER I. 

PKELIMINARY — THE NATURE AND NECESSITY OF A 
SOCIAL SCIENCE. 

Political Economy, 13 Ethics, 14 — Both merged in the Science of Society, 
14— Comprehensiveness of the latter, 15 — Socialism, 16 — Objection that it is not 
scientific, 16 — The religious objection, 17 — The harmony between Religion and 
Social Science, 20 — The dangers from Socialism, 23— Social organization the pro- 
per sphere of Science, 24 — Cost the limit of Price, an element in the solution, 
26— The Value, or Supply and Demand Principle false, 27— Objections anticipated, 
27— A work on " Practical Details" forthcoming, 27 — The Cost Principle already 
tested in practice, 28 — Trial Villages, 28 — "Equitable Commerce" defined, 30 — 
The Problem to be solved, 31 — The Solution stated in five propositions, 32 — Adap- 
tation OF THE Supply to the Demand, 33 — Individuality, 35 — The Sov- 
ereignty OF THE Individual, 36— A circulating medium founded on 
THE cost op Labor, 36 — The Cost Principle resumed, 37 — The inter- 
relations and mutual dependency of these principles, 37 — Definition of Adap- 
tation OF Supply to Demand, 38 — An impossibihty under the present 
system of Commerce, 39 — The Cost principle renders it possible, 40 — Connec- 
tion between Individuality and the Sovereignty of the Individb-al, 40 
— Connection between the Sovereignty of the Individual and the Cost 
Principle, 41-45. The growth of the doctrine of Individuality, 46 — 
Its incompleteness without the Cost Principle, 46 — Comhinatioji distin- 
guished from Co-operation, 48 — Disconnection distinguished from isolation, 49 — 
The Cost Principle addresses itself differently to the iwo classes of community, 
those who receive more than equivalents and those who receive less than 
equivalents. 



CHAPTER n. 



EQUITY AND THE LABOR NOTE. 

Definition of Equity, 53— Equality of Burdens, 54 — Measure of Cost, Time, 
54 — Eepugnance, 55 — Essential conditions of scientific Commerce, 57 — Standard 



X CONTENTS, 

of Cost, 57 — Each individual must malve his own estimate of repugnance, 58— 
There must be a sufficient inducement to honesty, 58 — Necessity of a Circu- 
lating Medium, 59 — The Labor Note, 60 — Its cheapness and abundance, 61 — 
Makes every man his ov^n banker, 62 — Combines the properties of a CiECU- 
LATiNG Medium and a means of credit, 63 — Experiment at Trialville, 64 — 
Individuality preserved, 65 — Operation and advantages of the Labor Note as ?. 
means of credit, 66 — Represents an ascertained and definite amount of laboi 
or property, 68. 



CHAPTER IIL 



COST, PRICE, LABOR, NATURAL WEALTH. 

Definitions of Cost and Peice, 70— Natukai, Wealth, 71— Ownership of 
the soil, 72 — The Cost Principle destroys speculation in Land, 74 — Destroys 
speculation in natural talent and skill, 75 — Natural talent is natural wealth, and 
bears no legitim.ate price, 76— Objection answered, 77 — Price again defined, 78— 
Distinguished from gift or gratuity, 79 — Objection that nature rewards accord- 
ing to product considered, 81 — The true principle already partially admitted, 
more so in the material and less in the intellectual sphere, 83 — The Cost Prin- 
ciple identical with the law of jDi-ogress, 86 — An illustration as between 
nations, 87 — From the etiquette of private life, 88 — Limits the power of the 
strong over the weak, 89 — The concurrence of the rich will be had in realizing 
the true principle, 91 — Cost, active and passive, 92 — Sacrifice of surrendering 
natural wealth, 93 — Comprehensiveness of the term " Cost," 96 — Comparison 
of standards in different localities, 98 — The functions of money, 100 — What 
ought to be represented by a circulating medium, 102. 



CHAPTER IV. 



VALUE DISTINGUISHED FROM COST. 

Price does not legitimately relate to Value, 104 — Value regulates the demand, 
105— Objection answered, 108 — Disconnection between Price and Value illus- 
trated, 110 — Impossible to measure Valiie, 111 — ^Exchange according to Values 
inequitable, 113~The Wheelwright, 114— The Life-Pill, 116— Market Value, 
117 — The highest present standard of honesty, 118 — The Valjie Principle the 
principle of conquest, 119 — Engenders falsehood and hypocrisy, 120 — Makes 
the rich richer and the poor poorer, 121 — Makes trade for trade's sake, 121 — 
Degrades Labor, 122 — Prevents the adjustment of Supply to Demand, 123 — 
Speculation defined, 123— Profit-malnng defined, 124— Slavery, 124 — The Value 



CONTENTS, XI 

Principle renders competition destructive and desperate, 126 — The nature of 
competition, 127 — Reasons why it is now a calamity to be thrown out of one's 
occupation by competition, 128— No positive limit on demand, 129— Reasons, 
etc., continued, 130 — The Value Principle makes the invention of machinery a 
misfortune, 131— General deleterious results of the principle, 132— The Cost 
Principle reverses all these, 133. 



CHAPTER V. 



MENIAL LABOH RAISED IN PRICE. 

All species of labor elevated in dignity, 134 — The hardest work best paid, 
135 — Objection, Would banish refinement, 136 — Two hours of labor a day 
sufficient for ordinary comfort, 137 — Present waste of industry, 138 — Wealth 
only one means of refinement, 139 — Second objection, Depresses the condition 
of genius, etc., 141 — The artist, 142 — Third objection. Does not provide for the 
performance of every useful function, 144 — Fourth objection. No provision for 
the poor, 146 — Pauperism and charity, 147 — Objection to attractive industry, 
Destroys the equilibrium of the faculties, 150 — Individuality infinite, 151 — It is 
our existing system which destroys the equilibrium of the faculties, 152 — The 
Jack-at-ali- Trades, 152 — Attractions not simple but varied, 153 — The Cost 
Principle adapts itself to any theory upon the subject, 154. The true eqm- 
librium maintained, 155. 



CHAPTER VL 



ATTRACTIVE INDUSTRY, CO-OPERATION, AND THE 
ECONOMIES. 

Not the object of this work to present a picture of harmonic society, 156 — 
Such a picture would be differently appreciated by different classes, 157 — The 
object is to expound principles as roots from which harmonic society must 
grow, 158 — The higher results of t-he Cost Principle, Attractive Industry, 158 — 
How average, regular, and minimum prices establish themselves under the 
Cost Principle, 159 — First shown practically, 160 Prices of wheat, milk, eggs, 
etc., at Trialville, 160 — Equity as a sentiment, 161 — The same results shov/n 
theoretically, 162 — Important Consequences, Affords the chief element of 
Attractive Industry, 163 — Directs Competition to the right point, 163 — Be- 
comes the interest of every one to be thrown out of his occupation by better 
workmen, 166 — Competition rendered co-operative instead of antagonistic, 168 
—Illustration from wood-chopping, 168 — Illustration from writing or copying, 



XU CONTENTS. 

170 — Every body aided in getting labor in his proper position; 171 — Men con- 
sidered as instruments of production badly employed, and out of their proper 
positions now, 174 — The Economies of the large scale, 175 — Individualization 
not isolation, 177 — Co-operation and the economies of the large scale loithout 
Combination, 178 — The Eating-house, 179 — The Value Principle defeats the 
tendency to societary life growing out of the economies, 180 — The opposite is 
the case under the Cost Principle, 181 — Extent of the social revolution thus 
foreshadowed, 182 — Common Eating-house, Laundry, Nursery, Lying-in- 
Department, Phalanstery, etc., 183 — Individualism preserved throughout, 184 — 
Capital at the command of all, 184 — ^Each man absolute in his own dominion, 
184— HigU hannonic results, 185. 



CHAPTER VII. 



CAPITAL, RENT, INTEREST, WAGES, MACHINERY, ETC. 

The question of Interest never satisfactorily answered, 186 — Equivalent 
benefits and Equivalent burdens, 187— Benefit no basis of interest, 187 — Sacri- 
fice is a basis, 188 — Risk another ground, 189 — Surplus capital loaned without 
interest, 189 — Objection, that the amount of interest which might be received 
is the measure of sacrifice, answered, 190 — Risks distinguished, 191 — Reduced 
by the operation of the Cost Principle, 192 — Inventors will have the command 
of capital, 193 — Settlement in Oregon, 194— Comparative effect of the two 
principles, 196 — Objection from the increase of natural wealth considered, i 97 
— Cattle on the prairie, 198 — Temptation to deviate from the true principle, 
199 — Distinction between capital and the power of capital to accumulate more 
capital, 200 — The bees, 201— Nature of investments, 201 — Rent of houses, 20i — 
Machinery, 205 — Interest as based on the scarcity of the precious metals, 205 — 
The Labor Note as a general system of currency, 206 — The "Wages System" 
justified, 208 — The wrong of our present system in the want of Equity, 211 — 
Adaptability of the Cost Principle, 212 — Possible extinction of price, 213 — Sim- 
plicity and comprehensiveness of the Principle, 214; 



THE 



COST PRINCIPLE. 



CHAPTER I. 

PRELIMINARY.™ THE NATURE AND NECESSITY OF A 
SOCIAL SCIENCE. 

1. The question of the proper, legitimate, and just 
reward of labor, and other kindred questions, are be- 
coming confessedly of immense importance to the wel- 
fare of mankind. They demand radical, thorough, and 
scientific investigation. Political Economy, which has 
held its position for the last half century as one of the 
accredited sciences, is found in our day to have but 
a partial and imperfect application to matters really 
involved in the production and distribution of wealth. 
Its failure is in the fact that it treats wealth as if it 
were an abstract thing having interests of its own, 
apart from the well-being of the laborers who produce 
it. In other words, human beings, their interests and 
happiness, are regarded by Political Economy in no 
other point of view than as mere instruments in the pro- 
duction or service of this abstract Wealth, It does not 
inquire in what manner and upon what principles the 
accumulation and dispensation of wealth should he con- 



14 COST THE LIMIT OF PS.ICE. 

ducted in order to eventuate in the greatest amount of 
human comfort and happiness, and the most complete 
development of the individual man and woman. It 
simply concerns itself with the manner in which, and 
the principles in accordance with which, men and wo- 
men are now employed, in producing and exchanging 
wealth. It is as if the whole purposes, arrangements, 
and order of a vast palace were viewed as mere ap- 
pendages to the kitchen, or contrivances for the conve- 
nience of the servants, instead of viewing both kitchen 
and servants as subordinate parts of the system of life, 
gayety, luxury, and happiness which should appropri- 
ately inhabit the edifice, according to the design of its 
projectors. 

2. Hence Political Economy is beginning to fall into 
disrepute as a science (for want of a more extended 
scope and a more humanitarian purpose), and is liable 
even to lose credit for the good it has done. The ques- 
tions with which it deals can no longer be regarded as 
an integral statement of the subject to which they re- 
late. They are coming to be justly estimated as a part 
only of a broader field of scientific investigation which 
has but recently been entered upon ; and as being in- 
capable of a true solution apart from their legitimate 
connections with the whole system of the social afiairs 
of mankind. The subject-matter of Political Econo- 
my will, therefore, be hereafter embraced in a more 
comprehensive Social Science, which will treat of all 
the interests of man growing out of their interrelations 
with each other. 

3. A criticism somewhat similar to that here be- 
stowed upon Political Economy is applicable to Ethics. 



PRELIMINARY. 15 

It has been tlie function of writers and preacliers upon 
Morals, hitherto, to inculcate the duty of submitting to 
the exigencies of false social relations. The Science 
of Society teaches, on the other hand, the rectification 
of those relations themselves. So long as men find 
themselves embarrassed by complicated connections of 
interest, so that the consequences of their acts inevita- 
bly devolve upon others, the highest virtue consists in 
mutual concessions and abnegation of selfhood. Hence 
the necessity for Ethics, in that stage of progress, to en- 
force the reluctant sacrifice, by stringent appeals to the 
conscience. The truest condition of society, however, 
is that in which each individual is enabled and con- 
strained to assume, to the greatest extent possible, the 
Cost or disagreeable consequences of his own acts. 
That condition of society can only arise from a general 
disintegration of interests — from rendering the interests 
of all as completely individual as their persons. The 
Science of Society teaches the means of that individ- 
ualization of interests, coupled, however, with co-opera- 
tion. Hence it graduates the individual, so to speak, 
out of the sphere of Ethics into that of Personality — 
out of the sphere of duty or submission to the wants 
of others, into the sphere of integral development and 
freedom. Hence the Science of Society may be said 
to absorb the Science of Ethics as it does that of Po- 
litical Economy, while it teaches far more exactly the 
limits of right by defining the true relations of men. 
(30, 3T.) 

4, The Science of Society labors indeed under a se 
rious embarrassment from the fact of its comprehen- 
siveness. The changes which the realization of the 



16 COST THE LIMIT OF PRICE. 

principles it unfolds would bring about in tbe circum- 
stances of society, make it differ from matters of ordi- 
nary science, in the fact of its immediate and compli- 
cated effects upon what may be termed the vested in- 
terests of the community. It is difficult for men to 
regard that as purely a question of science which they 
foresee is a radical reform and revolution as well. 
Still there are few persons who do not recognize the 
fact that there is some subtle and undiscovered cause 
of manifold evils, lying hid down in the very founda- 
tions of our existing social fabric, and which it is ex- 
tremely desirable should be eradicated by some means, 
however much they may differ with reference to the in- 
strumentalities through which the amelioration is to be 
sought for. The demand for a thorough investigation 
of the subject, and a settlement upon true principles of 
the relations of labor and capital especially, has come 
up during the last few years with more prominence than 
ever before, both in Europe and America, and has given 
rise to the various forms of Socialism which are now 
agitating the whole world. The real significance and 
tendency of Socialism are stated in No. I. of this se- 
ries of publications, entitled, ' The True Constitution 
of Government, in the Sovereignty of the Individual, 
as the Final Development of Protestantism, Democra- 
cy, and Socialism. 

5. Indeed, the inquiry into social evils and remedies 
has not been generally viewed in the light of a science 
at all, and Reform of all sorts has become distasteful to 
many among the more intellectual portion of the com- 
munity, for the reason that it has not hitherto as- 
sumed a more strictly scientific aspect. Neither quer- 



PHELIMINARY. IT 

ulous complaints of the present condition of things, 
nor brilliant picturings of the imagination, nor vague 
aspirations after change or perfection, satisfy those 
whose mental constitution demands definite and tangi- 
ble propositions, and inevitable logical deductions from 
premises first admitted or established. 

6. There is another portion of the community who 
object to the investigation of all social questions upon 
nearly opposite grounds. They assume that the moral 
and social regeneration of mankind is not the sphere 
of science, but exclusively that of religion — that the 
only admissible method of societary advancement is by 
the infusion of the religious sentiment into the hearts 
of men, and the rectification thereby of the affections 
of the individual, and through individuals of mankind 
at large. 

T. If this proposition be reduced to this statement — 
that, if the spirit of every individual in a community is 
right, the spirit of that community, as an aggregate, 
must be right likewise — the assertion is a simple truism ; 
but society demands a form as well as a substance, a 
body no less than a soul ; and if that form or body be 
not a true outgrowth and exponent of the spirit dwell- 
ing within, it is affirming too much to say that such a 
society is rightly constituted. It is the province of 
science or the intellect to provide the form in which any 
desire is to be actualized. What Substance is to Form, 
the Love or Desire is to the intellectual conception of 
the modes of its realization. Religion deals with the 
heart or affections ; in other words, with the love or 
desire, which makes up the substance or inherent con- 
stituent quality of actions. Science which is bora of 



18 COST THE LIMIT OF PRICE. 

Wisdom deals with the Forms of action, and teaches 
that such and such only accord with a given Desire and 
^Yill eventuate in its realization. The development of 
the Love or Desire is first in order and first in rank ; 
that of the corresponding Wisdom is nevertheless equally- 
indispensable to the completeness of all that is good 
and true, in every department of rational being. 

8. To illustrate, let us suppose a nation overrun by 
foreign armies, and its very existence as an independ- 
ent people threatened, while merely a feeble, heartless, 
and unorganized resistance is oiFered. A few patri- 
otic and wise men assemble to consult upon the pros- 
pects and the necessities of their country. Immedi- 
ately a dissension divides them in regard to the cause 
of their repeated failures to arrest the progress of the 
enemy. One party asserts that it is a want of military 
skill, that their country is entirely destitute of the 
knowledge of tactics and castrametation, which, if 
understood, would be amply sufficient to enable them to 
display their whole strength, and to make the most 
desperate and successful defence. The other party 
assume opposite ground. They affirm that the fault is 
a want of patriotism among the people. They cite 
abundant instances to prove that the inhabitants care 
very little by whom they are governed 5 that they are, 
in fine, destitute of that spirit of devotion which is the 
essence or substance of warlike prowess. Thus divided 
in views, and jealous upon either side, they waste their 
time and grow mutually embittered toward each other. 
At length, after tedious discussions, and a long series 
of acrimonious recriminations, they arrive at the solu- 
tion in the fact that both parties are right. The peo- 



PRELIMINARY. 19 

pie are both destitute of patriotic devotion and of mil- 
itary science. Which, then, is the first want, in or • 
der, to be supplied 1 Clearly the former. Still both 
are equally essential to the organization of a complete 
defence. Having accorded in this view, they first dis- 
perse themselves as missionaries over the whole coun- 
try, preaching patriotism. By exciting appeals they 
arouse the dormant affections of the people for their fa- 
therland, and alarm them for the safety of their wives 
and little ones. Their efforts are crowned with suc- 
cess. They witness the rising spirit of indignation 
against the invaders, and of martial heroism on all 
hands. It spreads from heart to heart, and throbs in 
the bosoms of the men, and even of the women and 
children. At this point a new evil displays itself. 
Fathers, husbands, and sons desert their ripening crops 
and their unprotected families, and rush together, a 
tumultuous, unarmed mob, clamorous for war. Confu- 
sion and distress succeed to apathy. The danger is in- 
creased rather than lessened. Famine and pestilence 
threaten now to be added to the fury of conquerors 
incensed by irritating demonstrations of a resistance 
powerless for defence. Then arises the demand for 
military science. At this point it is the part of the 
wise men who control the destinies of .the people to 
abandon their missionary labor and assume the char- 
acter of commanders and military engineers. Preach- 
ing is no longer in order. The man who from over- 
zeal persists in inflaming the minds of the populace, 
however well intentioned, may prove the most deadly 
enemy of his country. Organization, the forming of 
companies, the drilling of squads, and the construction 



20 COST THE LIMIT OF PRICE. 

of forts are now in demand. Desire, the Substance, 
subsists, demanding of Science the true Form of its 
manifestation. 

9. What Patriotism is to the Science of War for the 
purpose of defence, the religious sentiment of Love is 
to the true Science of Society. The hearty recognition 
of human brotherhood, and the aspiration after true 
relations with God and man are, at this day, widely dif- 
fused in the ranks of society. Christianity has pro- 
duced its fruit in the development of right affection far 
beyond what the religious teachers among us are them- 
selves disposed to credit it for. The demand is not 
now for more eloquence, and touching appeals, and fer- 
vent prayers to swell the heart to bursting with painful 
sympathies for suffering humanity. The time has come 
when preaching must give way to action, aspiration to 
realization, and amiable but fruitless sympathetic affec- 
tions to fundamental investigation and scientific meth- 
ods. The true preachers of the next age will be the 
scientific discoverers and the practical organizers of true 
social relations among men. The religious objection 
to Social Science is unphilosophical and suicidal. 

10. There is another form in which this objection is 
sometimes urged by those who claim to understand some- 
what the philosophy of progress. They affirm that if the 
disposition to do right exist in the Individual or in the 
community, that disposition will inevitably conduct to 
the knowledge of the right way ; in other words, that 
Wisdom is a necessary outgrowth of Love ; and hence 
"they deduce the conclusion that we need not concern 
ourselves in the least about discovering the laws of a 
true social order. The premise of this statement is 



PEELTMINARY. 



21 



true while tlie conclusion is false. Taken together, it 
is as if one should assert that the sense of hunger nat- 
urally impels men to find the means of subsistence, 
and hence that no man need trouble himself about food. 
Let him sit down, quietly relying upon the potency of 
mere hunger to provide the means of the gratification 
of his appetite. 

11. The very fact of the Socialist agitation of our 
day, and the continued repetitions in every quarter of 
the attempt to work out the problem of universal jus- 
tice and harmony, are the very outgrowth in question 
of the indwelling desire for truer social relations, and 
never could have arisen but for the previous existence 
of that desire. The religionist who denies or ignores 
this inevitable sequitur from the spirit of his own teach- 
ings, is like the insane head that first wills and then 
disowns the hand that performs. 

Science — the rigid, exact, thorough, and inclusive 
Science of Society — is the only reliable guide to har- 
monic social relations among men. Neither the ardor 
of piety, nor the sentiment of brotherhood, nor the 
desperate devotion of generous enthusiasm, nor the re- 
pressive force of a rigid morality, ofiers any adequate 
remedy for the existing evils of humanity. All these 
may be necessary, indispensable, nay, infinitely higher 
in rank or sanctity, if you will, than the other. But 
Love must have its compiem^ent in Wisdom. To di- 
vorce them is to be guilty of " partialisni,^^ just where 
it is of the utmost importance that the movement shall 
be integral and complete. 

12. Possibly this statement may enlighten some 
minds in relation to the existing misunderstanding be- 



22 COST THE LIMIT OF PRICE. 

tween the religionists and the Socialists. The former 
insist upon the spiritual element, the latter upon the 
scientific, as if the one or the other supplied the whole 
of what is requisite to a true development of socie- 
ty. Abstractly, the religionist may be said to be the 
nearest right, inasmuch as substance is prior to form ; 
but practically, and with reference to the present wants 
of society, the Socialist is nearer the truth. The spir- 
itual element exists already, at least in embryo. The 
aspiration after better and truer relations is swelling 
daily, bursting the bands of existing institutions, and 
demanding knowledge of the true way^ — an organized 
body of the Christian idea of human brotherhood which 
the living soul may enter, and wherein it may dwell. 
But neither without the other is complete. 

13. So powerful is becoming the sentiment of right, 
that unless the demand so created be followed by a 
complete discovery of the methods of its gratification, 
there is abundant danger that justice as a blind instinct 
may prove more destructive than organized oppression. 
As in the case of the misdirected or ill-directed patri- 
otism in the illustration above, so every right sentiment 
and affection, without its complement of wisdom, is liable 
to become pernicious instead of beneficent in its action. 
If the love the mother bears her child leads her to feed 
it to excess on candies and comfits, to confine it in close, 
warm rooms, and guard it from contact with whatever 
may test and develop its powers of endurance, far bet- 
ter that she loved it less. She needs, in addition to 
love, a knowledge of Physiology. The Science of So- 
ciety is to the Community what Physiology is to the 
Individual ; or, rather, it is to the relations of the In- 



PRELIMINARY. 23 

dividual with others what Physiology is to the relations 
of the Individual, so to speak, with himself. 

14. In the same manner the knowledge on the part 
of the laboring classes or their friends, that they are 
under an oppressive and exhausting system of the re- 
lations of capital and labor, does not amount to a knowl- 
edge of the true system, into which, when known, it 
should be their object to bring themselves as rapidly as 
possible. To discover that true system, by any other 
means than by long years, perhaps long generations, 
of fallacious and exhausting experiments, must be the 
work of genius J of true science^ profound fundamen- 
tal investigation^ or any other name you choose to be- 
stow upon that faculty and that process by which ele- 
mentary truths are evolved by contemplating the nature 
of a subject. 

15. The Socialist agitations of the present day are, 
therefore, emimently dangerous, as much do as the most 
violent reactionist ever imagined them, unless Science in- 
tervenes to point the way to the solution. Religion, nor 
the dictates of a stringent morality, will ever reconcile 
men who have once appreciated their inherent, God- 
given rights, to the permanency of an unjust system by 
which they are deprived of them. Mere make-shifts 
and patched-up contrivances will not answer. False 
methods, such as Strikes, Trades' Unions, Combina- 
tions of interests, and arbitrary regulations of all sorts, 
are but temporary palliations ending uniformly in dis- 
appointment, and often in aggravation of the evils 
sought to be alleviated. A distinguished writer upon 
these subjects says truly : " Establish to-morrow an 
ample and fair Scale of Prices in every employment 



24 COST THE LIMIT OF PKICE. 

under tlie sun, and two years of quiet and the ordinary 
mutations of Business would suffice to undermine and 
efface nearly the whole. No reform under the present 
system but a decided step out of and above that sys- 
tem is the fit and enduring remedy for the wrongs and 
oppressions of Labor by Capital. And this must in- 
evitably be a work of time, of patience, of genius^ of 
self-sacrifice, and true heroism." In other words, it is 
the province of Science to discover the true principles 
of trade as much as it is to discover the laws of every 
other department of human concerns, and that discov- 
ery is an important part of the still more comprehen- 
sive Science of Society. 

16. If, then, some profound philosopher, whose high 
authority could command universal belief, were to step 
forward and announce the discovery of a simple princi- 
ple, which — adopted in trade or business — would deter- 
mine with arithmetical certainty the equitable price to 
be charged for every article sold, and for every species 
of property, and for every hour of time bestowed upon 
its production and distribution, so that labor in every 
department should get precisely its due reward, and the 
existing inequalities in the distribution of wealth, and 
the consequent poverty and wretchedness of the masses 
be speedily alleviated and finally removed — and if, in 
addition, the principle were such that its adoption and 
practical consequences did not depend upon convincing 
the intellects or appealing to the benevolence of the 
■wealthy classes, but lay within the compass of the pow- 
ers of the laboring men themselves — if, still further than 
thi's, the principle did not demand, as a preliminary, the 
extensive co-operation, the mutual and implicit confi- 



PRELIMINARY. 25 

dence, tlie complicated arrangements, tlie extensive 
knowledge of administration, and tlie violent cliange in 
domestic habits, some one or other of which is involved 
in nearly every proposition of Socialism, and for which 
the laboring classes are specially disqualified — if, in one 
word, this simple principle furnished demonstrably, un- 
equivocally, immediately, and practically, the means 
whereby the laboring classes might step out from U7ider 
the present system, and place themselves in a condition 
of independence above that system, would not this an- 
nouncement come in good time ; would it not be a sup- 
ply eminently adapted to the present demand of the la- 
boring masses in this country and elsewhere 1 

With some misgivings as to the prudence of asserting 
such a faith, in limine ^ I state m_y conviction that such 
a principle has been discovered and is now in the pos- 
session of a small number of persons who have been 
engaged in practically testing it, until its regulating and 
wealth-producing effects have been sufficiently though 
not yet abundantly demonstrated. 

17. JosiAH Warren, formerly of Cincinnati, more 
recently a resident of Indiana, is, I believe, justly en- 
titled to be considered the discoverer of the principle to 
which I refer, along with several others which he deems 
essential to the rectification of the social evils of the ex- 
isting state of society. 

The principle itself is one which will not probably 
strike the reader when first stated, as either very pro- 
found, very practicable in its application, very import- 
ant in its consequences, and perhaps not even as equitable 
in itself. It requires thought to be bestowed on each of 
these points. You will find, however, as you subject it 
2 



26 COST THE LIMIT OF PRICE. 

to analysis, as you trace it into its ten thousand diifer- 
ent applications J to ownership, to rent, to wages, etc., 
that it places all human transactions relating to prop- 
erty upon a new basis of exact justice — that is, it has 
the perfect, simple, but all-prevailing character of a 

UNIVERSAL PRINCIPLE. 

The question as to the method of commencing to put 
the principle in operation is a distinct one, and only 
needs to be considered after the principle itself is under- 
stood. I have already observed, that it has been and 
is now being practically tested with entire success. 

18. This principle, put into a formula, is thus stated : 
" Cost is the Limit of Price." 

The counter principle upon which all ownership is 
now maintained and all commerce transacted in the 
world is, that " Value is the limit of price," or, as the 
principle is generally stated in the cant language of 
trade, "A thing is worth what it will bring." Between 
these two principles, so similar that the difference in 
the statement would hardly attract a moment's atten- 
tion unless it were specially insisted upon, lies the es- 
sential difference between the whole system of civilized 
cannibalism by which the masses of human beings are 
mercilessly ground to powder for the accumulation of 
the wealth of the few, on the one hand, and on the other, 
the reign of equity, the just remuneration of labor, and 
the independence and elevation of all mankind. 

19. There is nothing apparently more innocent, 
harmless, and equitable in the world than the statement 
that a " thing should bring what it is worth," and yet 
even that statement covers the most subtle fallacy which 
it has ever been given to human genius to detect and 



PRELIMINARY. 2T 

expose — a fallacy more fruitful of evil than any other 
wliicli the human intellect has ever been beclouded by. 
(180.) 

20. Value has nothing whatever to do, upon scientific 
principles, as demonstrated by Mr. Warren, with set- 
tling the price at which any article should be sold. 
Cost is the only equitable limit, and by cost is meant 
the amount of labor bestowed on its production, that 
measure being again measured by the painfulness or 
7'epugnance of the labor itself. (61, %t).) 

Value is a consideration for the purchaser alone, and 
determines him whether he will give the amount of the 
cost or not. (132.) 

21. This statement is calculated to raise a host of 
objections and inquiries. If one purchaser values an 
article more highly than another, by what principle will 
he be prevented from offering a higher price 1 How is 
it possible to measure the relative painfulness or repug- 
nance of labor ? What allowance is to be made for su- 
perior skill or natural capacity 1 How is that to be 
settled % How does this principle settle the questions 
of interest, rent, machinery, etc. 1 What is the na- 
ture of the practical experiments which have already 
been made 1 etc., etc. 

22. These several questions will be specifically an- 
swered in this treatise upon " The Cost Principle," ex- 
cept the last, which will be more satisfactorily replied 
to by a work embodying the " Practical Details" of 
twenty-four years of continuous experiment upon the 
workings of this and the other principles related to it, 
and announced by Mr. Warren, which work Mr. War- 
ren is now engaged himself in preparing for the press. 



28 COST THE LIMIT OF PRICE. 

These " Practical Details" will relate to the operationa 
of two mercantile establishments conducted at different 
points, upon the Cost Principle^ to the education of 
children, to social intercourse, and, finally, to the com- 
plex affairs of a village or town which has grown up 
during the last four years, under the system of" Equita- 
ble Commerce," of which the Cost Principle is the basis. 
This work upon " Practical Details" will contain, I may 
venture to affirm, from a personal knowledge of its char- 
acter, a body of facts profoundly interesting to the phil- 
anthropic and philosophic student of human affairs. It 
must suffice for the present allusion to assert that there 
is no one of the circle of principles embraced by Mr. 
Warren under the general name of " Equitable Com- 
merce," or by myself under the name of " The Science 
of Society," which has not been patiently, repeatedly, 
and successfully applied in practice, in a variety of 
modes, long before it was announced in theory — a point 
in which it is thought that these principles differ mate- 
rially from all the numerous speculations upon social 
subjects to which the attention of the public has been 
heretofore solicited. 

23. The village to which I have referred is situated 
in the state of Ohio. It contains as yet only about 
twenty families, or one hundred inhabitants, having a 
present prospect of a pretty rapid increase of numbers. 
I will call it, for the sake of a name by which to refer 
to it, Trialville, stating at the same time that this is 
not the real name of the village, which I do not venture 
to give, as it might be disagreeable to some of the in- 
habitants to have the glare of public notoriety at so 
early a day upon their modest experiment. It might 



PRELIMINARY. 29 

also subject them to visits of mere curiosity, or to letters 
of inquiry, which, without their consent, I have not the 
right to impose upon them. Another village upon the 
same principles is about being organized in the vicinity 
of New York. 

Under the sobriquet of Trialville I shall have oc- 
casion, however, to refer to the operations at the former 
of these villages, which have so far proved successful in 
a practical point of view, that it is deemed, on the part 
of those most interested in this movement, to be a fitting 
time, now, to call the public attention more generally 
to the results. The publication of these treatises is in 
fact the beginning of that effort, which, if the intentions 
of those of us who are engaged in the enterprise do not 
fail of realization, will be more and more continuously 
and urgently put forth from this time forward. We 
believe that we have a great mission to fulfill — a gospel 
of glad tidings to proclaim — a practical and immediate 
solution of the whole problem of human, rights and their 
full fruition, to expound. Vv^hile, therefore, we cannot 
and would not entirely conceal the enthusiastic feelings 
by which we are prompted in this effort, still, lest it 
may be thought that such sentiments may have usurped 
the province of reason, we invite the most cautious in- 
vestigation and the most rigid scrutiny, not only of the 
principles we propound, but also of the facts of their 
practical working. While, therefore, I do not give the 
real name or exact location of our trial villages to the 
public at large, for the reasons I have stated, still we 
are anxious that all the facts relating to them shall be 
known, and the fullest opportunity for thorough inves- 
tigation be given to all who may become in any especial 



30 COST THE LIMIT OF PHICE. 

degree interested in tlie subject. The aiitlior of this 
work will be gratified to communicate with all such, and 
to reply to such inquiries as they may desire to have 
answered, upon a simple statement of their interest 
in the subject and their wish to know more of it. The 
real name and location of our trial towns will be com- 
municated to such, and every facility given for inves- 
tigation. 

Arrangements are contemplated for organizing other 
villages upon the same principles, and establishing an 
equitable exchange of products between them. It is 
not the object of the present work, however, to enter into 
the history or general plan of the movement, but simply 
to elucidate a single principle of a new science embrac- 
ing the field of Ethics and of Political Economy. 

24. It will be appropriate, in this preliminary state- 
ment of the subject, to guard against one or two misap- 
prehensions which may naturally enough arise from the 
nature of the terms employed, or from the apparently 
disproportionate importance attached to a simple prin- 
ciple of trade. 

The term " Equitable Commerce" does not signify 
merely a new adjustment of the method of buying and 
selling. The term is employed, by Mr. Warren, to 
signify the whole of what I have preferred to denomi- 
nate the Science of Society, including Ethics, Polit- 
ical Economy, and all else that concerns the outer 
relations of mankind. At the same time the mutual 
interchange of products is, as it were, the continent or 
basis upon which all other intercourse rests. Society 
reclines upon Industry. Without it man cannot exist. 
Other things may be of higher import, but it is of pri- 



PRELIMINARY. 31 

mary necessity. Solitary industry does not supply the 
wants of the individual. Hence trade or the exchange 
of products. With trade intercourse begins. It is the 
first in order of the long train of benefits which man- 
kind mutually minister to each other. The term " com- 
merce" is sometimes synonymous with trade or traffic, 
and at other times it is used in a more comprehensive 
sense. For that reason it has a double appropriateness 
to the subjects under consideration. It is employed 
therefore in the phrase " Equitable CommercCj" to sig- 
nify, firsts Commerce in the minor sense, as synonymous 
with "trade," and secoiidly^ Commerce in the major 
sense, as synonymous with the old English signification 
of the word, " conversation" — i. e., human intercourse 
of all sorts — the concrete, or tout ensemble^ of human 
relations. 

25. I will here show that these investigations take 
in the whole scope of Commerce in the major sense, 
after which I will return to the particular consideration 
and elucidation of the single principle, " Cost is the 
Limit of Price," which does, indeed, chiefly or primar- 
ily relate to Commerce in the minor sense, although the 
modes in which it afiects Commerce in the major sense 
are almost infinite. 

26. According to Mr. Warren, the following is The 
Problem to be Solved in all its several branches : 

1. " The proper, legitimate, and just reward of la- 
bor." 

2. " Security of person and property." 

3. "The greatest practicable amount of freedom to 
each individual." 

4. " Economy in the production and uses of wealth." 



32 COST THE LIMIT OF PRICE* 

5. "To open tlie vfay to eacli individual for the pos- 
session of landj and all other natural wealth." 

6. "To make the interests of all to co-operate with 
and assist each other, instead of clashing with and 
counteracting each other." 

T. " To withdraw the elements of discord, of war, of 
distrust and repulsion, and to establish a prevailing 
spirit of peace, order, and social sympathy." 

27. And according to him., also, the following prin- 
ciples are the means of the solution : 

I. " Individuality." 
II. " The Sovereignty of each Individual." 

III. " Cost the Limit of Phice."' 

IV. " A Circulating Medium, founded on the 
Cost of Labor." 

V. " Adaptation of the Supply to the De- 
mand." 

28. The mere reading of this programme will sug- 
gest the immensity of the scope to which the subject 
extends. In the present volume I have selected a sin- 
gle principle — the third among those above named — - 
and shall adhere to a pretty thorough exposition of it, 
rather than overload the mind of the reader by bring- 
ing into view the whole of a system, covering all possi- 
ble human relations. A few minds may, from the 
mere statement of these principles, begin to perceive 
the rounded outlines of what is, as I do not hesitate to 
affirm, the most complete scientific statement of the 
problem of human society, and of the fundamental 
principles of social science^) which has ever been pre- 
sented to the world. Most, however, will hardly begin 
to understand the universal, and all-pervading potency 



PRELIMINARY. 33 

of these few simple principles, until they find them 
elarborately displayed and elucidated. At present I 
must take the broad license of asserting that they are 
UNIVERSAL PRINCIPLES, and referring the reader, for 
what I mean by a universal principle, to what I have 
to say of the one which I have selected for a particu- 
lar explanation — " Cost the Limit of Price." 

29. As a mere hint, however, in relation to the oth- 
ers, let us take the last, " Adaptation of the Sup- 
ply to the Demand." This seems to be a formula 
relating merely, as, in fact, it does relate mainly, to 
ordinary commerce — trade — commerce in the minor 
sense. In that sense, it expresses an immense want 
of civilized society— nothing less, as Carlyle has it, 
than a knowledge of the way of getting the supernu- 
merary shirts into contact with the backs of the men 
who have none. But this same principle introduced 
into the parlor becomes likewise the regulator of po- 
liteness and good manners, and pertains therefore to 
commerce in the major sense as well. I am, for ex- 
ample, overflowing with immoderate zeal for the prin- 
ciples which I am now discussing. I broach them on 
every occasion, I seize every man by the button-hole, 
and inflict on him a lecture on the beauties of Equita- 
ble Commerce ; in fine, I make myself a universal bore, 
as every reformer is like to be more or less. But at 
the moment some urbane and conservative old gentle- 
man politely observes to me, " Sir, I perceive one of 
your principles is, ' The Adaptation of the Supply to the 
Demand.' " I take the hint immediately. My mouth 
is closed. I perceive that my lecture is not wanted— 
2* 



84 COST THE LIMIT OF PRICE, 

that he does not care to interest himself in the subject. 
There is no demand , and I stop the supply. 

But you are ready to say. Would not the same 
hint given in some other form stop the impertinence 
of over-zealous advocacy in any case 1 Let those an- 
swer who have been bored. But suppose it did, could 
it be done so gracefully, in any way, as by referring 
the offender to one of the very principles he is advo- 
cating, or which he professes 1 Again : grant that it 
have the effect to stop that annoyance, the hint itself 
is taken as an offence, and the offended man, instead 
of continuing the conversation upon some other subject 
that might be agreeable, goes off in a huff, and most 
probably you have made him an enemy for life. But, 
in my case, it will not even be necessary for the con- 
servative old gentleman to remind me — I shall at once 
recollect that another of my principles is, " The Sov- 
ereignty OF THE Individua-L.'' One of the highest 
exercises of that sovereignty is the choice of the sub- 
jects about which one will converse and upon which he 
Tfill bestow his time — hence I recognize cordially his 
right to exclude my subject, and immediately, grace- 
fully, and good-humorediy I glide off upon some other 
topic. Then, by a law of the human mind, which it is 
extremely important to understand, and practically to 
observe, if it be possible that there should ever arise a 
demand with him to hear any thing about that subject, 
my uniform deference for even his prejudices will has- 
ten the time. Indeed, all conservative old gentlemen, 
who hate reform of all sorts as they do ratsbane, would 
do well to make themselves at once familiar with these 
principles, and to disseminate them as the means of 



PSELIMINARY. S5 

defending tliemselves. Do you begin to perceive that 
such a mere tradesman-like formala, at first blush, as 
" The Adaptation of the Supply to the Demand," 
becomes one of the highest regulators of good manners 
— a part of the ethics of conversation — of the " Equi- 
table Commerce" of gentlemanly intercourse — as well 
as what it seems to be, an important element of trade ; 
and do you catch a glimpse of what I mean, when I 
say that it is a universal principle of commerce in the 
major sense? 

30. The doctrine of Individuality is equally uni- 
versal. I have only to say here, that it means the next 
thing to every thing, w^hen you come to its applications. 
It means, as applied to persons, that every human be- 
ing has a distinct character or individuality of his 
own, so that any attempt to classify him with others, 
or to measure him by others, is a breach of his natural 
liberty ; and, as applied to facts, "that no two cases ever 
occurred precisely similar, and hence that no arbitrary 
general rule can possibly be applied to cases not yet 
arisen. It follows, therefore, that all laws, systems, 
and constitutions whatsoever must yield to the individ- 
ual, or else that liberty must be infringed ; or, in other 
words, that the Individual is above Institutions, and 
that no social system can claim to be the true one, 
which requires for its harmonious operation that the 
Individual shall be subjected to .the system, or to any 
institutions whatsoever. 

We are taught by it that all combinations of interest 
whatsoever are limitations upon the exercise of the indi- 
viduality of the parties, or restrictions upon natural lib- 
erty. Hence also, by Individuality, the true practical 



86 COST THE LIMIT OF- PRICE. 

movement begins with a complete disintegration of all 
amalgamated interests, siicli as partnerships, in a man- 
ner peculiar to itself. Hence, again, to the casual ob- 
server, this movement seems to be in exact antagonism 
to Association, and the views of Socialism of all the va- 
rious schools. A more thorough acquaintance with the 
subject will show, however, that this individualizing of 
all interests is the analysis of society ^ preliminary to 
association as the synthesis — as much association as is 
demanded by the economies, being a growth of that co- 
operation of interests — not combination or amalgama- 
tion — ^which results from the operation of the Cost 
Principle, (3, 37.) 

31. The Sovereignty of the Individual grows 
out of the more fundamental principle of Individual-. 
ITY, as stated in No. I. of this series. A special oc- 
casion called for that treatise, and limited it to a par- 
ticular application. The extensive nature of the sub- 
ject in its numerous ramifications will demiand a sepa- 
rate work upon Individuality and the Sovereignty of 
the Individual, which, while they are distinguishable as 
principles, stand, nevertheless, closely related to each 
other. 

32. A Circulating Medium founded on the 
Cost of Labor is, perhaps, not so properly a princi- 
ple as an indispensable instrument for carrying the 
Cost Principle into practical operation. It is a mone- 
tary system, holding to the true or equitable system of 
Commerce a relation quite similar to that which specie 
and bank notes now hold to the present false and dis- 
honest system. The subject of equitable money will 
"be treated of more at large in the subsequent chapterSj 



PRELIMINARY, 37 

and does not require any further explanation at tliis 
point. As such a circulating medium is one of the 
necessary conditions of working out the true societary 
results, it is classed with principles, along with the 
means of the solution. (69, 245.) 

83. It is claimed that within the circle of these five 
principles or efficient powers is found every condition 
of the complete development of a true social order, or, 
in other words, a full and perfect solution of the social 
problem stated above. Is that statement of the prob- 
lem sufficiently comprehensive 1 Does it include, either 
directly or consequentially, all which has ever been 
aimed at by social reformers of any school, and all 
which is requisite to the full harmony and beauty of 
human relations 1 If that be so, and if the assumption 
just stated be made good, .both by exposition and prac- 
tical results, then have we at length a theory of society 
strictly entitled to the appellation of a Science — a 
movemicnt, precise, definite, and consequential, adequate, 
on the one hand, to meet the demands of the most ex- 
acting intellect, and sufficiently beneficent, on the other, 
to gratify the desires of the most expansive philan- 
thropy, while in its remoter results it promises to sa- 
tiate the refined cravings of the most fastidious taste. 

34. This volume treats professedly upon the Cost 
Principle, Still each of the principles above stated 
will necessarily be referred to from time to time. It 
will perhaps be well, therefore, that the particular dis- 
cussion of the principle which I have selected for pres- 
ent consideration should be prefaced by a brief state- 
ment of the interrelations and mutual dependence of 
these several principles upon each other. 



38 COST THE LIMIT OF PmCE, 

It IS especially appropriate that sometliing should be 
shown which will bridge over the seeming gap between 
so metaphysical a statement as that of the Sovereignty 
of the Individual, as set forth in the preceding Number, 
and the merely commercial consideration of an appro- 
priate limit of price. An integral view of the connec- 
tions of the different parts of this system of princi- 
ples can only be a final result of a thorough familiarity 
with their detailed applications and practical effects. 
At the same time the fact that they are connected and 
mutually dependent will appear upon slight examina- 
tion. For the rest, I must take the license to assert, 
with great emphasis, the existence of so intimate a re- 
lation between them, that if any one of them is omit- 
ted, it is totally impossible to work out the proposed 
results. The others will remain true, but any one of 
them, or any four of them, are wholly inadequate to 
the solution. This connection may be established by 
beginning almost indifferently at any point in the circle. 
Let us assume, as a starting point. The Adaptation 
or THE Supply to the Demand. 

35. By Adaptation of Supply to Demand is 
meant a sufficiency of any variety of product ^ present 
at every time and place^ to meet the want for that j) ar- 
ticular product which may be felt at the same time and 
place. It is wholly from the defect of such arrangements, 
in the existing commercial system, as would secure such 
an adaptation of supply to demand, that society is af- 
flicted with periodical famine or scarcity, or, on the 
other hand, with gluts of the market, and consequent 
sacrifice and general bankruptcy, and, far more import- 
ant than all, because more continuous, with what is 



PHELTMINARY. 39 

called an excess of labor in the various labor markets 
of the worldj by which thousands of men and women 
able to work and willing to work are deprived of the 
opportunity to do so. There is no reason in the nature 
of the case why there should not be as accurate a 
knoy/ledge in the community of the statistics of supply 
and demand as there is of the rise and fall of the tides, 
nor why that knowledge should not be applied to secure 
a minute, accurate, and punctual distribution of pro- 
ducts over the face of the earth, according to the wants 
of various countries, neighborhoods, and individuals. 
The supposed excess of labor is no more an excess 
than congestion is an excess of Mood in the hu- 
man system. The scarcity of the circulating me- 
dium which is now in use, and which is requisite for 
the interchange of commodities, is regarded by those 
who have studied this subject profoundly as the princi- 
pal difficulty in the way of such an adjustment, but 
that scarcity itself is only a specific form and instance 
of the general want of adaptation of supply to demand, 
which extends far beyond all questions of currency — 
the supply of circulating medium being unequal to the 
demand for it, owing to the expensiveness of the sub- 
stances selected for such medium, and their consequent 
total unfitness for the purpose. 

36. It follows from what has been said, that appro- 
priate arrangements for the adaptation of supply to 
demand are a sine qua non of a true social order. 
But the existeufce of such arrangements is an impossi- 
bility in the midst of the prevalence of speculation. 
But speculation has always existed, and is inherent in 
the present commercial system, and consequently no 



40 COST THE LIMIT OF PHICE. 

adequate adjustment of supply to deiuand lias ever been 
had, or can ever be had, ^yhile that system remains in 
operation. It is the business of speculation, and hence 
of the whole mercantile profession, to confuse and be- 
cloud the knowledge of the community upon this very 
vital point of their interests, and to derange such nat- 
ural adjustment as might otherwise grow up, even in 
the absence of full knowledge on the subject — to cre- 
ate the belief that there is excess or deficiency when 
there is none, and to cause such excess or deficiency in 
fact when there would otherwise be none, in order to 
buy cheap and sell dear. Speculation is not only the 
vital element of the existing system of Commerce, but 
it will alvfays exist upon any basis of exchange short 
of the Cost Principle. The Cost Principle extinguishes 
speculation, as will be shown in the sequel. Herein, 
then, is the connection between these two of the five 
conditions of social order, (158.) 

37. Let us return now to The Soveheignty of the 
Individual. This has been shown in the previous 
work to be also a sine qua non of true human rela- 
tions. The Sovereignty of the Individual, which is 
merely the complete enjoyment of personal liberty, the 
unimpeded pursuit, by every individual, of his own 
happiness in his own way, and the development of his 
own inherent selfhood, is, in fact, the apex, or culmi- 
nating point of the true harmony of society. It was 
also demonstrated that this Sovereignty cannot pos- 
sibly be indulged, without continual* encroachments 
upon the equal Sovereignty of others, in any other 
mode than by a complete disintegration of interests — 
a total abandonment of every species of combined or 



PRELIMINARY. 41 

amalgamated ownersliip, or administration of property. 
Individuality of Character teaches, in this manner, 
that in order to the harmonious exercise of the Sove- 
reignty of the Individual, a disconnection of interests 
must be had, which is in turn nothing else than an- 
other application of the same all-pervading principle 
of Individuality. Such, then, is the intimate connec- 
tion between Individuality and the Sovereignty of the 
Individual. (3, 30.) 

38. But again : what is to be the consequence of 
this general individualization of interests 1 Such is, to 
a very great extent, the order of the actual condition 
of ownership and administration in our existing soci- 
ety, which is, nevertheless, replete with social evils. 
Indeed, hitherto those evils have been attributed, by 
Social Reformers, to the prevalent individualization of 
interests, among men, more than to any other cause. 
Hence they have made war upon it," and proposed com- 
bined or amalgamated interests, or extensive partner- 
ship arrangements, as the only possible means of se- 
curing attractive industry, and co-operation, and econo- 
my in the production and uses of wealth. We now 
assert that in order to secure what is more important 
than all else, the possibility of the free exercise of In- 
dividual Sovereignty, an indispensable condition is a 
still greater amount than now exists of Individuality, 
or disconnection in the property relations of men. 
We afiirm that nearly all that there is good in existing 
society results from that element. What then fol- 
lows 1 Do we abandon the high aims of other Social- 
ists in other respects ? Is all thought of co-operation 
and the economies surrendered by us 1 Clearly they 



i2 COST THE LIMIT OF PRICE. 

are, unless some new and hitherto undiscovered ele- 
ment is brought in. To go hack from the present 
field of effort of the Social Reformers to so much of 
Individuality as can exist in the present order of soci- 
ety, and stop at that alone, is evidently to return to 
the present social disorder, in which it is sufficiently 
demonstrated by experience, that the exercise of the 
Sovereignty of the Individual — the point we aim to se- 
cure — is itself just as impossible as the other condi- 
tions desired. But why is it impossible 1 • For the 
reason that Individuality of interests, upon which that 
exercise rests, is itself only partially possible in a so- 
cial state in which there is a general denial of equity 
in the distribution of wealth — equity being what the 
Cost Principle alone can supply.. If the woman, or 
the youth under age, is denied the means of acquiring 
an independent subsistence, by the fact that they re- 
ceive less than equivalents for their industry, they are 
necessarily thrown into a state of dependence upon 
others. 'The exercise of their own Sovereignty, then, 
is obviously an impossibility for them. There are 
thousands of women, for example, in the higher ranks 
of society, who never felt the luxury in their lives 
of spending a shilling that they knew to be actu- 
ally their own, and never applied to their fathers or 
husbands for money without the degrading sense of 
beggary. On the other hand, the husbands and fa- 
thers are involved, by the same false pecuniary rela- 
tions, in. an unnecessary and harassing responsibility 
for the conduct and expenditure of every member of 
their families, which is equally destructive of their own 
freedom, or the exercise of their own Sovereignty over 



PRELIMINARY. ' 43 

tliemselves. It is tlie same in the existing relations 
of the poor and the rich, the hireling and the em- 
ployer, the master and the slave, and in nearly all the 
ten thousand ramified connections of men in existing 
society. By refusing equity in the distribution of 
wealth — by reducing the earnings of women, and 
youths, and hired men, and slaves below equivalents — • 
by thus grasping power over others, through the me- 
dium of an undue absorption of the products of their 
industry, the members of community are brought into 
the relation of oppressors and oppressed, and both are 
together and alike involved in a common destiny of 
mutucd restrictions, espionage, suspicions, heartburn- 
ings, open destructive collisions, and secret hostility, 
and each is thereby shorn of the possibility of exercis- 
ing his prerogative of sovereign control over his own 
actions. 

39. Government of all sorts is adverse to freedom. 
It destroys the freedom of the subject, directly, by vir- 
tue of the fact that he is a subject; and destroys 
equally the freedom of the governor, indirectly, by de- 
volving on him the necessity of overlooking and at- 
tempting, hopelessly, to regulate the conduct of others 
—a task never yet accomplished, and the attempt at 
which is sufficiently harassing to wear the life out of 
the most zealous advocate of order. With the greater 
development of the individuals to be governed the task 
becomes proportionally the more onerous, until, in our 
day, the business of governing grows vulgar from its 
excessive laboriousness. 

40. All combinations of interest imply and involve 
the necessity of government, because nature demands 



44 . COST THE LIMIT OF PE.ICE. 

and will liave an individual lead. The denial of equity 
implies and involves the necessity of combinations of 
interest, by throwing one part of the community into a 
state of dependence upon the other, authorizing mu- 
tual supervision and criticism, and creating mutual re- 
striction and hostility. 

41. A man of wealth is said, among ns, to be a 
^^man in independent circumstances;" but in truth 
the man of wealth of our day has not begun to con- 
ceive the genuine luxury of perfect freedom — a free- 
dom which, by immutable laws, can never be realized 
otherwise than by a prior performance of exact justice. 

42. The principles here asserted are universal. The 
same causes that are upheaving the thrones of Europe 
are disturbing the domestic tranquillity of thousands 
of families among us. Red Republicanism in France, 
African Slavery in America, and the mooted question 
of the rights of vfomen are one and the same problem. 
It is the sole question of human liberty, or the Sove- 
reignty of the Individual ; and the sole basis upon 
which the exercise of that Sovereignty can rest is 
Equity — the rendering to each of that which is his. 
The Cost Priiiciple furnishes the law of that render- 
ing. That, and that alone, administers Equity. Hence 
it places all in a condition of independence. It dis- 
solves the relation of protectors and protected by ren- 
dering protection unnecessary. It takes away the ne- 
cessity resulting from dependence for combinations of 
interest and government, and hence for mutual respon- 
sibility for, and interference Vfith, each other's deport- 
ment, by devolving the Cost^ or disagreeable effects of 
the conduct of each upon himself — submitting him to 



PRELIMINARY. 45 

the government of natural consequences — the only le- 
gitimate government. In fine, the Cost Principle in 
operation renders possible, harmless, and purely be- 
neficent the universal exercise of Individual Sove- 
reignty. 

43. Hence it follows that the Cost Principle under- 
lies Individuality^ or the disconnection of interests, in 
the same manner as Individuality itself underlies and 
sustains the Sovereignty of the hidividual. Hence, 
again, the Cost Principle is the basis principle or 
foundation upon which the whole fabric of social har- 
mony rests, as the Sovereignty of the Individual is, as 
has been said, the apex, or culminating point of the 
same fabric — the end and purpose of a true social or- 
der. Herein, then, is their intimate and necessary re- 
lation to each other. 

44. Without Equity as a basis on which to rest, 
the Sovereignty. of the Individual is true still as an ab- 
stract principle, but wholly incapable of realization. 
The Individual Sovereign is so de jurcy but not de 
facto. He is a Sovereign without dominions, treated 
as a pretender, and his claims ridiculed by the actual 
incumbent. The assertion of Sovereignty is a phan- 
tom and a delusion until the Sovereign comes to his 
own. The Cost Principle, as the esseiitial element of 
Equity y gives to each his own, while nothing else can. 
Hence, again, the intimate and necessary relation be- 
tween these two principles, 

45. The doctrine of the Sovereignty of the Individ- 
ual is already beginning to develop itself, originally in 
an abstract form, in various quarters, and to take a 
well-defined shape in many minds. It has been an- 



46 COST THE LIMIT OF PRICE, 

iiounced in substance, recently, by several able writers, 
not accompanied, however, by the indispensable scien- 
tific limitation — '^ to be exercised at his own cost" — 
without which it is a principle of anarchy and confu- 
sion, instead of order. To preach the doctrine, even 
with the limitation, apart from its basis in equity, is 
disturbing. It is the announcement to slaves of their 
inherent right to be free, at the same time that you 
leave them hopeless of the realization of freedom. It 
is to unfit men for their present relations while oifering 
them no means of inaugurating truer relations. It is 
"to curse men's stars, and give them no sun." As a 
preliminary work to the impending reconstruction, the 
unsettling of men's minds may be a necessitj^, but 
" transitions are painful," and humanity demands that 
the interval should be shortened between inspiring a 
want and actualizing the conditions of its gratification. 
46. The essential condition of freedom is disconnec- 
tion — individualization — disintegration of interests. 
The essential condition of disconnection is, that that be 
given to each which belongs to each. All harmonic 
unity is a result or growth from the prior individual- 
ity of the separate monads. The old condition of so- 
ciety, of fealty and protection, and consequent mutual 
amalgamation or combinations of interests, is a species 
of amorphous conglomerate, of which the past progress 
of Reform has been the gradual dissolution. Reform 
and consequent individualization is the tendency of this 
age. The process thus commenced must go on to com- 
pletion, until every man and every woman, and, to an 
appropriate extent, every child, is a perfect Individ- 
ual, with an interest, an administration, and a destiny 



PRELIMINARY. 47 

solely and emphatically under his or her own control. 
Out of that condition of things , and concurrently with 
it, and just in proportion to its completeness, will grow 
a more intimate harmony, or, if you will, unity of sen- 
timent, and human affections, and mutual regard, be- 
gotten purely of attraction, than can be conceived of 
in the midst of the mutual embarrassment and con- 
straint of our day, and of our order of life. It is only 
when each individual atom of the dusky mineral is disin- 
tegrated from every other, held in complete solution, 
and allowed to obey, without let or hindrance, the law 
of its own interior impulse, that each shoots spontane- 
ously to its own place, and that all concur in volun- 
tary union to constitute the pellucid crystal or the 
sparkling diam^ond of the mines. So in human affairs, 
v/hat is feared by the timid conservative as the disso- 
lution of order, is, in fact, merely the preliminary stage 
of the true harmonic Constitution of Society — the ne- 
cessary analysis prior to its genuine and legitimate 
isyn thesis. 

47. The connection of the Cost Principle with the 
Adaptation of the Supply to the Demand has been 
already pointed out. The nature and necessity of an 
Equitable Money ^ as the instrument of working the 
Cost Principhj will be demonstrated, as previously 
stated, in a subsequent chapter. In this manner the 
interrelations of this circle of principles are estab- 
lished, not so fully as the nature of the subject de- 
mands, but as much so as the incidental character of 
the present notice will permit. 

48. But, although it may be admitted that we gain 
something of freedom in the action of the Individual, 



48 COST THE LIMIT OF PRICE. 

by avoiding combinations of interest, do we not lose, 
by that means, the benefits of co-operation, and the 
economies of the large scale 1 This question is im- 
portant, and demands a satisfactory and conclusive 
answer. That answer is given in the whole treatise 
which follows. It is admitted that heretofore no other 
means for securing those ends have been known. It 
is asserted, however, that principles are now known by 
which all the higher results of social harmony can be 
achieved v/ithout that fatal feature of combination, 
which has promised, but failed, to realize them. 
Hence we draw a new and technical distinction be- 
tween Combination and Co-operation^ and insist on 
that distinction with great rigor. We assert that the 
true principles of Social Science are totally averse to 
combinations of interest. At the same time we admit 
freely, that any principles which should not secure the 
greatest conceivable amount of Co-operation would fail 
entirely of solving the problem in question. 

49. By Combinations are meant partnership inter- 
ests and community of property or administration, 
such as confuse, in any degree, or obliterate the dines 
of Individuality in the ownership or use of property. 

50. By Co-operation, or co-operative relations, is 
meant such an arrangement of the property and indus- 
trial interests of the different Individuals of the com- 
munity, that each, in pursuing his own pleasure or 
benefit, contributes incidentally to the pleasure or 
benefit of the others. (No. I. p. 69.) 

51. We assume the burden of proof. We admit 
the obligation resting upon us to establish the position 
that extreme Individuality or disconnection of inter- 



PRELIMINARY. 49 

ests is compatible — contrary to all previous opjii^n — 
with as thorough and extended Co-operation as can 
exist in any system of Combinations whatsoever. 

52. It must not be understood that disconnection of 
interests implies, in the slightest degree, an isolation 
of persons. (No. I. p. 68.) A hundred or a thou- 
sand men may be engaged in the same shop, and still 
their interests be entirely individualized. Such is the 
case now under the present wages system. The labor- 
ers in a manufacturing establishment, for example, 
have no common interest, no partnership, no combined 
responsibilities. Their interests are completely indi- 
vidualized, and yet they work together. This is all 
right. It is not at this point that the evil lurks which 
the Socialist seeks, or should seek, to remedy. Be- 
sides this, these men and women now co-operate com- 
pletely in their labor. They all work at distinct func- 
tions to a common end, which is Co-operation, The 
evil to be remedied is neither in their individuality of 
interests nor in any want of Co-operation. It is solely 
in the want of mutuality in the results of that Co-ope- 
ration — in other words, in the want of Equity — in the 
want of a regulating principle, which would secure to 
each the full, legitimate results of his own labor. The 
difficulty is, that the whole hundred, or the whole thou- 
sand men now labor and co-operate, not for their own 
benefit, but for the benefit of one — the employer. Un- 
der the operation of the Cost Principle their interests 
will be individual as they are now ; they will co-ope- 
rate as they .do now, or, rather, more perfectly, but 
they will co-operate for their own mutual benefit — the 



60 COST THE LIMIT OF PRICE. 

employer, or cliief, receiving, like all others, merely the 
equivalent and reward of his own labor. 

53. I feel painfully that by attempting such a con- 
densation of these matters I am liable to render myself 
wofully obscure. I will take a special occasion to show 
that " Equitable Commerce" is not the antagonist of 
any other of the great Reforms proposed, but that it 
comes in as the harmonizer of the whole. If it be 
claimed by his admirers that Fourier has shown " the 
what" of harmonic social relations, Warren shows "the 
how" to realize such relations, in which last respect 
Social Reformers generally have been lamentably de- 
ficient. 

■ 54. I will conclude by stating how the Cost Principle, 
in its operation, will address itself to the difierent classes 
of community, so that those who feel no demand need 
not be over-burdened by the supply. 

The whole community may be divided, under this 
system — not according to the old classification of Po- 
litical Economy into producers and non-producers — but 
into those who receive more than equivalents for their 
labor, and those who receive less than equivalents — 
those who perform no productive labor and receive a 
living or more than that, being included in the former 
class. 

. Of these classes, the latter — all those who receive 
less than equivalents, including the great mass of sim- 
ple operatives who have not the aid of capital — ^havc 
an immediate and pecuniary interest in at once adopt- 
ing the principle. 

The remaining class — those who receive more than 
equivalents — have no such interest, but contrariwise. 



PRELTMINAUY, 51 

Of these only sucli as are moved by consideratiorxS of 
benevolence or justice, or tlie love of order and har- 
mony in human relations, or by the sense of insecurity 
even for the rich in the existing order of society, or by 
an appreciation of the higher gratifications of taste 
through the general prevalence of refinement, luxury, 
and wealth, have any demand for this new principle of 
Commerce ; and so soon as those with whom such con- 
siderations are not potential, have read enough to know 
how equivalents can be measured, and that they are 
now on the gaining side, they will need no further sup- 
ply of this reform, and the reform must go on without 
them, as it best may. There are only distant advan- 
tages to offer them, and as they have the immediate ad- 
vantages in their own hands, they must be expected to 
do the best they can to retain them. The peculiarity 
of the movement iSj however, that it does not proceed 
by their leave. 



52 COST THE LIMIT OF PEICE. 



CHAPTEE II. 

EQUITY AND THE LABOR NOTE. 

55. Human beings are subject to various wants. Some 
of these wants have to be supplied to sustain life at all ; 
others to render life comfortable and happy. If an in- 
dividual produced, with no aid from others, all the nu- 
merous things requisite to supply his wants, the things 
which he produced — -his products — would belong to him- 
self. He would have no occasion to exchange with oth- 
ers, and they would have no equitable claims upon him 
for any thing which was his. 

56, But such is not the case. We all want contin- 
ally for our own support or comfort those things which 
are produced by others. Hence we exchange products. 
Hence comes trade— buying and selling — Commerce^ 
including the hiring of the labor of others. Trade is^ 
therefore^ a necessity of human society, and consists 
of the exchange of the labor, or the products of the 
labor of one person, for the labor, or the products of 
the labor, of another person. 

SV. It is clear, if this exchange is not equal, if one 
party gives more of his own labor — either in the form 
of labor or product — than he gets of the labor of the 
other — either in the form of labor or product — that he 
is oppressed, and becomes, so far as this inequality 
goes, the slave or subject of the other. He has, just 



EQUITY AND THE LABOR NOTE. 53 

SO far, to expend his labor, not for his own benefit, but 
for the benefit of another. To produce good or benefi- 
cent results from trade, therefore, the exchanges should 
be equal. Hence it follows that the essential element 
of beneficent Commerce is EQUITY, or that which is 
just and equal between man and man. 

58. The fundamental inquir}^, therefore^ upon the 
answer to which, alone, a Science of Commerce can be 
erected, is the true measure of Equity, or, Y/hat is the 
same thing, the measure of price in the exchange of 
labor and commodities. This question is one of im- 
mense importance, and, strange to say, it is one which 
has never received the slightest consideration, which 
has never, indeed, been raised either by Political Econ- 
omists, Legislators, or Moralists. The only question 
discussed has been, what it is which now regulates 
price — never what should regulate it. It is admitted, 
nevertheless, that the present system of Commerce dis- 
tributes wealth most unjustly., Why, then, should we 
not ask the question, What principle or system of Com- 
merce would distribute it justly? Why not apply our 
philosophy to discovering the true system, rather thai? 
apply it to the investigation of the laws according to 
which the false system works out its deleterious results 1 

59. Simple Equity is this, that so much of your 
lahor as I take and apply to my benefit, so much of 
MY labor ought I to give you to be applied to your 
benefit; and, consequently, if I take a product of 
your labor instead of the labor itself and pay you in 
a product of my lahor, the commodity which I give 
you ought to be one in which there is just as much 
LABOR as there is in the product which I receive. 



64 COST THE LIMIT OF PRICE. 

The same idea may be differently presented in this 
manner. It is Equity that every individual should sus- 
tain just as much of the common burden of life as has 
to he sustained by any body on his account. Such 
would be the result if each produced for himself all 
that he consumed, as in the first case supposed above ; 
and the fact that it is found convenient to exchange 
labor and the products of labor, does not vary the defi- 
nition of Equity in the least. 

60. To a well-regulated mind the preceding propo- 
sitions present an obvious and self-evident truth, like 
the proposition that two and two make four, demand- 
ing no other proof than the statement itself. Yet 
simple and undeniable as they appear, when thus dis- 
tinctly propounded, the consequences which inevitably 
follow from the principle which they affirm are ultra- 
radical and revolutionary of all our existing commercial 
relations, as will be shown in the subsequent chapters 
of this work. They contain merely, however, a state- 
ment of the Principle of Equity. They leave the ques- 
tion of the Method of making an application of the prin- 
ciple still open. They do not furnish the means of ar- 
riving at the measure of Equity. This, then, is the 
next step in the investigation, 

61. If I exchange my labor against yours, the first 
measure that suggests itself for the relative amount of 
labor performed by each is the length of time that each 
is employed. If all pursuits were equally laborious, or, 
in other words, if all labor were equally repugnant or 
toilsome — ^if it cost equal amounts of human suffering 
or endurance for each hour of time employed in every 
different pursuit, then it would be exact Equity to ex- 



EQUITY AND THE LABOR NOTE. 55 

change one hour of labor for one other hour of labor, 
or a product which has in it one hour of labor for 
another product which has in it one hour of labor the 
world over. Such, however, is not the case. Some 
kinds of labor are exceedingly repugnant, while others 
are less so, and others still more pleasing and attrac- 
tive. There are differences of this sort which are 
agreed upon by all the world. For example, sweeping 
the filth from the streets, or standing in the cold water 
and dredging the bottom of a stream, would be, by 
general consent, regarded as more repugnant, or, in the 
common language on the subject, harder work^ than 
laying out a garden, or measuring goods. 

But besides this general difference in the hardness 
or repug7iance of work, there are individual differences 
in the feeling toward different kinds of labor which 
make the repugnance or attraction of one person for 
a particular kind of labor quite different from that of 
another. Labor is repugnant or otherwise, therefore, 
more or less, according to the individualities of persons. 

If you inquire among a dozen men what each would 
prefer to do, you will find the greatest diversity of 
choice, and you will be surprised to find some choosing 
such occupations as are the least attractive to you. It 
is the same among women as respects the labors which 
they pursue. 

62. It follows from these facts, that Equity in the 
exchange of labor, or the products of labor, cannot be 
arrived at by measuring the labor of different persons 
hy the hour merely. Equity is the equality of burdens 
according to the requirements of each person, or, in 
other wordSj the assumption of as much burden by each 



ub COST THE LIMIT OF PRICE. 

person as has to be assumed by somebody, on his ac- 
count, so that no one shall be living by imposing burdens 
on others. Time is one element in the measurement 
of the burdens of labor, but the different degrees 
of repugnance in the different kinds of labor pre- 
vent it from being the only one. Hence it follows that 
there must be some means of measuring this repugnance 
itself — in other words, of determining the relative hard- 
ness of different kinds of work, before we can arrive at 
an equitable system of exchanging labor and the products 
of labor. If we could measure the general average of 
repugnance — that is, if we could determine how people 
generally regard the different kinds of labor as to their 
agreeableness or disagreeableness, still that would not 
insure Equity in the exchange between individuals, on 
account of those individualities of character and taste, 
which have been adverted to. It is an equality of bur- 
den between the two individuals who exchange which 
must be arrived at, and that must be according to the 
estimate which each honestly forms of the repugnance 
to him or her of the particular labor which he or she 
performs, and which, or the products of which, are to 
be exchanged. 

63. It is important for reasons of practical utility to 
arrive at a general or average estimate of the relative 
repugnance of different kinds of labor, especially of the 
most common kinds, and that is done under the opera- 
tion of the Cost Principle, as hereafter pointed out 
(195) ; but, as we have seen, if we had already arrived 
at it, it would not be a sufficiently accurate measure 
of Equity to be applied hetiveen individuals ; while, on 
the other hand, this average itself can only be based 



EQUITY AND THE LABOR NOTE. 5T 

upon individual estimates. The average wliich now 
exists in the pubUc mind, by which it is understood 
that field labor, in cultivating grain, for example, is 
neither the hardest nor the easiest kind of work, and 
that sewing or knitting is not so repugnant as washing 
or scrubbing, rests upon the general observation of 
individual preferences. 

64. It follows, therefore, in order to arrive at a sat- 
isfactory measure of Equity, and the adoption of a sci- 
entific system of commerce, 1. That some method must 
be devised for comparing the relative repugnance of 
different kinds of labor. 2. That in making the com- 
parison, each individual must make his or her own esti- 
mate of the repugnance to him or her of the labor 
which he or she performs, and 3. That there should be 
a sufficient motive in the results or consequences to in- 
sure an honest exercise of the judgment, and an honest 
expression of the real feelings of each, in making the 
comparison. 

Q^. I. — That some method should he devised for 
comparing the relative repugnance of dijfet*ent kinds 
of labor. This is extremely simple. All that is ne- 
cessary is to agree upon some particular kind of labor 
the average repugnance of which is most easily ascer- 
tained, or the most nearly fixed, and iise it as a stand- 
ard of comparison, a sort of yard-stick for measuring 
the relative repugnance of other kinds of labor. For 
example, in the Western American States it is found 
that the most appropriate kind of labor to be assumed 
as a standard with which to compare all other kinds of 
labor is corn-raising. It is also found, upon extensive 
investigation, that the average product of that kind of 
3* 



58 COST THE LIMIT OF PHICE. 

labor, in that region, is twenty pounds of corn to the 
hour. If, then, biacksmithing is reckoned as one half 
harder work than corn-raising, it will be rated (by the 
blacksmith himself) at thirty pounds of corn to the 
hour. If shoemaking be reckoned as one cjuarter less 
onerous than corn-raising, it will be rated at fifteen 
•pounds of corn to the hour. In this manner the idea 
of corn-raising is used to measure the relative repug- 
nance of all kinds of laboro 

66> II. — That in making the comparison, each indi- 
vidual must make his or her own estimate of the 
repugnance to him or her of the particular labor 
which he or she perforins. This condition must be 
secured, both for the reasons already stated, and be- 
cause another equally important principle in the true 
science of society is the Sovereignty of the Individual. 
The Individual must be kept absolutely above all insti- 
tutions. He must be left free even to abandon the 
principles whenever he chooses. The only constraint 
must be in the attractive nature and results of true 
principles. (No. I. No. III.) 

67. III. — That there should he a sufficient motive 
in the results or consequences of compliance with these 
principles to insure an honest exercise of the judg- 
ment, and an honest expression of the real feeling of 
each in snaking his estimate of the i^elative repug- 
nance of his lahor. The existence of such a motive 
can only be shown by a view of the general results of 
this entire system of principles upon the condition of 
society, and upon the particular interests of the indi- 
vidual. These results must be gathered from a 
thorough study of the whole subject, in order to estab- 



EQUITY AND THE LABOR NOTE. 59 

lisli this point conclusively to tlie pliilosopliic mind. 
The force of a public sentiment rectified by the knowl- 
edge of true principles will not be lost sight of by such 
a mind. (229.) The particular remedial results of devi- 
ations from the principle of Equity upon the inter- 
ests of the individual will be specifically pointed out in 
the subsequent pages. (72-76.) 

68. If an exchange could be always made and com- 
pleted on the spot, each party giving and receiving an 
equivalent, that is, an amount of labor, or a product 
of labor, which had in it an amount of repugnance or 
cost, just equal to that in the labor or product for which 
it was given or received, the whole problem of exchanges 
would be solved by the simple method just stated. 
There would in that case be no necessity for a circula- 
ting medium, or for any thing to perform the part which 
is performed by money in our existing commerce. But 
such is not the case. Articles are not always at hand 
w^hich have in them the same amount of cost ; indeed, 
it is the rare exception that exact equivalents can be 
made upon the spot in commodities which are mutually 
wanted. Besides, it may frequently happen that I 
want something from you, either labor, or the products 
of labor, when you, at the time, want nothing of me. 
In such a case the exchange is only partially completed 
on the spot, the remaining part waiting to he com- 
pleted at some future time, by the performance of an 
equivalent amount of labor, or the delivery of products 
or commodities having in them an ecpivalent amount 
of labor. 

69. In such a case as that just stated, it is proper 
that the party who does not make his part of the ex- 



60 COST THE LIMIT OF PEICE. 

change on the spot, should give an evidence of his ob- 
ligation to do so at some future time, whenever called 
upon — and this is the origin of what is called the La- 
bor Note, which is the form assumed by " Equitable 
Money," the fourth among the elements of the solu- 
tion of the Problem of Society. The party who re- 
mains indebted to the other, gives his own note, pro- 
vided the other consents to receive it, for an equiva- 
lent amount of his own labor, or else of the standard 
commodity — say so many pounds of corn, specifying in 
the note the kind of labor, and the alternative. As it 
may happen that the party receiving the Labor Note 
may not require the labor itself, or that it may be in- 
convenient for the party promising to perform it when 
it is wanted, it is provided that the obligation may be 
discharged, at the option of the party giving the note, 
in the standard commodity instead. On the other 
hand, although the party receiving the note may not 
want the labor himself, yet some person with whom he 
deals may want it, and hence he can pass the note to 
a third party who is willing to receive it for an equiva- 
lent amount of labor, or products, received from him. 
In this manner the Labor Note begins to circulate 
from one to another, and the aggregate of Labor Notes 
in circulation in a neighborhood constitutes the neigh- 
borhood circulating medium, dispensing, so far as this 
Equitable Commerce extends, with money altogether, 
or, rather, introducing a new species of paper-money^ 
based solely upon individual responsibility, 

70. The use of the Labor Note is not, as has been 
already observed, strictly a principle of Equity^ and 
partakes more of the nature of a contrivance than any 



EQUITY AND THE LABOR NOTE. 61 

Other feature of the system of Equitable Commerce ; 
but yet it seems to be a necessary instrument to be 
employed in the practical working of the system. The 
Theory of Equity is complete without it, but the ne- 
cessity for its use arises from the practical fact that 
exchanges cannot in every case be completed on the 
spot. Hence a circulating medium of some sort is in- 
dispensable, and in order that the system may remain 
throughout an equitable one, in practice as well as in 
theory, the circulating medium must be based on eouiv- 
alents of labor or cost between individuals. 

The features of the Labor Note are peculiar, and 
the points of difference between it and ordinary money 
are numerous and far more important than at first ap- 
pears. They are as follows : 

71. I. — Its cheapness and abundance. As it costs 
nothing but the paper upon which it is written, printed, 
or engraved, and the labor of executing and signing it, 
it may be said, for practical purposes, to cost nothing. 
The great Hvli of our existing currency is its expen- 
siveness and scarcity. It is upon these properties that 
the whole system of interest or rent on money is 
founded, a tribute to which the rich as well as the poor 
have to submit, whenever they want a portion of the 
circulating medium to use. To show that this is a 
real and frightful evil in gold and silver currency, and 
consequently in all money of which gold and silver are 
the basis, demands a distinct treatise on money. Un- 
der the Labor Note system, every man who has in his 
possession his ability to work, or his character, or in 
these elements variously combined, the assurance of 
responsibility or the basis of credit, has always by him 



62 COST TII£ LIMIT OF PRICE. 

as much money as lie needs. He lias only to take his 
pen from his pocket and make it at will. There can 
be no such cases as happen now, of responsible men 
worth their tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars in 
property, but absolutely destitute of money, and forced 
to submit to the shaving process of bankers, brokers, 
and Jews. 

72. 11. — Being based on individual credit, it makes 
every man his own hanker. This feature of the La- 
bor Note system is substantially contained in the pre- 
ceding statement, but the more important consequences 
of this fact remain to be pointed out. Bankers are 
proverbial for their anxiety to maintain their credit 
unimpaired and unsuspected. With them distrust is 
synonymous with the ruin of their business. Under 
this system every man, woman, boy, and girl, assum- 
ing the character of a banker, becomes equally solici- 
tous about the maintainance of his or her credit. 
Upon the goodness of their reputation for punctuality 
of redemption depends the fact of their always having 
change in their pockets. Honesty comes then to a 
good market, and finds at once a pecuniary reward. 
If one's credit is suffered to fall into disrepute among 
his neighbors, he is left positively without money or 
the means of obtaining it, and reduced to the necessity 
of making all his exchanges on the spot. He is put 
pecuniarily into Coventry. Both the superior advan- 
tages of possessing credit, and the greater inconveni- 
ence of losing it conspire, therefore, to install the reign 
of commercial honor and common honesty in the most 
minute and ordinary transactions of life among the 
whole people. The moralist who is wise will perceive 



EQUITY AND THE LABOR NOTE. 63 

herein an engine of reform immensely important to 
subserve liis ends. This result is already satisfacto- 
rily proven in practice at one point, where this system 
of exchanges has been introduced, in the fact that 
every person is anxious to obtain the Labor Notes of 
others for use and to abstain, so far as he can, from 
issuing his own ; as well as in the general solicitude 
for the preservation of credit, and the general prompti- 
tude in redeeming the notes that are issued. Notwith- 
standing the fact that, in so small a circle, it is only a 
part of the pecuniary transactions of the community 
which can be carried on upon the Cost Principle — or- 
dinary money having to he used in all transactions 
ivith the world outside, and even within the commu- 
nity, for those things which were purchased outside 
and which cost money — still these results have been 
strikingly exhibited in practice. 

73. III. — It combines the properties of a circulat- 
ing medium, and a means of credit. These qualities 
have been substantially stated above as separate attri- 
butes of the Labor Note system; but the advantage 
of their combination in one and the same instrumen- 
tality of Commerce is worthy of a distinct observation. 
At the end of the third year from the commencement 
of the settlement above referred to, there were eighteen 
families having two lots of ground each with houses — 
nine brick and nine wooden ones — and gardens of their 
own, nearly the whole of which capital was created by 
them during that period. The families, without ex- 
ception, came there quite destitute of worldly accumu- 
lations. Thirty dollars in money was probably the 
largest sum possessed by any of them. Others landed 



64 COST THE LIMIT OF PRICE. 

there witli five dollars and ten as the whole of their 
fortune. They were nearly all families who had been 
exhausted in means as well as broken down and dis- 
couraged in spirit by successive failures of community, 
or association attempts at reform. The success they 
have thus achieved, in so short a time, has resulted 
entirely from their own labor, exchanged so far as re- 
quisite and practicable upon the Cost or Equitable 
Principle, facilitated by the instrumentality of the La- 
bor Note. 

74. A family arriving without means at the location 
of a village operating on the Equitable Principle, if 
their appearance or known character inspires sufficient 
confidence in the minds of the previous settlers, can 
immediately commence operations, not upon charity, 
but upon their own credit, issuing their Labor Notes — 
men, women, and youths — so far as their several 
hinds of labor are in demand^ procuring thereby the 
labor of the whole village in all the various trades ne- 
cessary to construct them an edifice, and supply them 
with the necessaries of life, so far as the size of the 
circle renders it possible to produce them on the spot. 
Labor, even prospective labor ^ thus becomes immedi- 
ate capital. Interest and profits being discarded, the 
amount of capital thus existing in labor is greatly aug- 
mented. The fact that the labor of the women and 
children is equally remunerated with that of the men, 
again adds to the amount of combined capital in the 
family. By the operation of these several causes, a 
family, which has been struggling for years, in the 
midst of the competition of ordinary Commerce and 
the oppressions of capital, with no success beyond 



EQUITY AND THE LABOR NOTE. 65 

barely holding on to life, may become in a short time 
independent and well provided. Such are the legiti- 
mate workings of the true system of Commerce, and 
so far as it has been tested by practical operations the 
results have entirely corroborated the theory. 

75. [The settlers at Trial ville, however, would not 
wish any thing said upon this subject to be construed 
into any pledge on their part to supply any advantages 
to individuals coming among them. There is no com- 
munity or seciety there in the corporate se7ise of the 
term. Every Individual judges for himself upon what 
terms he will treat with others, how far he will receive 
their Labor Notes, or whether he will receive them at 
all. Persons going there must make up their own 
opinion whether there is a sufficient demand for the 
kinds of labor which they can perform, whether their 
own uprightness of character, and punctuality in the 
discharge of obligations, are such as to inspire and 
maintain confidence, and, indeed, upon every point re- 
lating to the subject. No guarantees whatever are 
given, except such as the Individual finds in the princi- 
ples themselves, while it is left entirely to the decision 
of the Individual himself, on every occasion, whether 
even he will act on the principles or not. There is 
no compact or constitution — no lawsy hy-lawsj rules, 
or regulations of any sort. The Individual is kept 
above all institutions, out of deference to the princi- 
p)le of Individuality and the Sovereignty of the Indi- 
vidual which belong just as much to the fundainental 
basis of true society as the Cost Principle itself. 
There must, therefore, be no reliance on express or 
implied pledges, nor upon any species of co-operation 



6Q COST THE LIMIT OF PRICE. 

which is contracted for^ and binding by agreement. 
Besides, the extent to which the advantages of the 
Labor Note can be rendered available is limited in the 
beginning by the smallness of the circle, by the preva- 
lence of pursuits unfavorable to the mutual exchange 
of labor or products, and by numerous other considera- 
tions, all of which must be judged of by the Individual 
upon his own responsibility, and at his own risk.] 

76. When credit is raised upon the issue of Labor 
Notes it has the advantage of being based upon that 
which the party has it in his power to give. He has 
in his own vaults the means of redemption. If a 
laboring rnan promises money, his ability to pay the 
money depends upon the precarious chance cpf his find- 
ing a demand for his labor. If he gives a Labor Note, 
which is to be redeemed in labor, he secures the means 
of paying by the act of entering into the obligation. 
Even if the payment is demanded in the alternative, 
and is discharged in the standard commodity itself 
(corn), or, what is more likely, in other commodities, 
measured by corn, or in the Labor Notes of the others, 
still all of these are procured by the exchange of his 
own labor, and it will appear, upon a full exposition 
of the system, that under the operation of these prin- 
ciples labor will always be in demand^ so that no la- 
borer need ever be out of employment. (161.) As a 
resul't of this fact every man can know positively, be- 
forehand, to precisely what extent he can, with safety, 
issue his Labor Notes, the contingencies of sickness 
and death alone excepted. Hence dishonesty finds no 
subterfuges. In the case of death the heirs possess 
the property, if there be property, for which the notes 



EQUITY AND THE LABOR NOTE. 6T 

■WBYQ given. To refuse to redeem tliem is a palpable 
ascertained fraud, and the same powerful motives, 
wliich have been shown as operating on the original 
debtor to insure honesty and punctualitj^, operate also 
upon them. If they evade the obligation, they, too, 
are placed in Coventry, and cut off from all the advan- 
tages and privileges which such an association affords. 
The influence thus brought to bear upon them is ten- 
fold more potent than laws, and the sanctions of laws, 
in existing society. In the event of sickness, if the 
invalid has accumulated proper.ty, it serves to maintain 
him, and redeem his outstanding obligations, precisely 
as now. Such is the main purpose of accumulation. 
If a person has no property at the time his Labor 
Notes are given, then his credit is based solely on his 
future labor, and the liability to sickness and death 
enter into the transaction and limit the issue. The 
risk is incurred^ by the party who receives them. As 
the amount of these notes in the hands of any single 
individual is generally small, the risk is a mere trifle, 
and has never been found, practically, to be enough to 
make it worth while to take it into account at all. For 
the contingency of the loss of property by fire or other 
accidents, between the time when obligations are in- 
curred and their redemption, as well as at all other 
times, insurance can be resorted to, as is done in ex- 
isting society. Thus the Labor Note, while it is a 
circulating medium, is at the same time the instrument 
of a system of credit, having all the advantages, with 
none of the frightful results of insecurity and bank- 
ruptcy, which grow out of, or accompany the credit 
system actually prevailing in the commercial world. 



68 COST THE LIMIT OF PFaCE, 

*rT. IV. — The Lahor Note represents an ascertained 
and definite amount of lahor or property, which or- 
dinary money does not. V/e have examples of this 
feature of currency in tlie railroad and opera ticket, 
and other similar representations of a positive thing. 
A railroad ticket represents a ride of a definite length 
to-day, to morrow, and next day, but a dollar does not 
represent any thing definite. It will buy one amount 
of sugar or flour to-day, another amount to-morrow, 
and still a different amount the next day. The import- 
ance of this feature of the two different systems is im- 
mense. It can, however, only be exhibited in its con- 
sequence by an extended treatise on the subject. What 
is shown in this chapter is a mere glimpse at the sys- 
tem of " Equitable Commerce" in operation. A thou- 
sand objections will occur which it is impossible to re- 
move at the time of stating the general outline. It will 
be perceived by the acute intellect that a principle is 
here broached which is absolutely revolutionary of all 
existing commerce. Perhaps a few minds may follow 
it out at once into its consequences far enough to per- 
ceive that it promises the most magnificent results in 
the equal distribution of wealth proportioned to indus- 
try — the abolition of pauperism — ^general security of 
condition instead of continual bankruptcy or poverty — 
universal co-operation — the general prevalence of com- 
mercial honoi' and honesty, and in ten thousand har- 
monizing and beneficent effects, morally and religiously. 
The larger class of persons, however, will require that 
each particular detail shall be traced out and defined, 
and the mass of mankind will only understand the sub- 
ject upon the basis of practical illustration. Hence 



EQUITY AND THE LABOR NOTE. 69 

the necessity that the practice go along with the theory, 
a method which has been generally adopted and pur- 
sued, and of the results of which the public will be 
from time to time sufficiently advised. 

It would be inappropriate at this early point, and 
before a better understanding of the results which flow 
from the fountain of Equity has been obtained, to trace 
the operation of the Labor Note more into detail. In 
a subsequent chapter it will be considered in the light 
of a universal or world-wide system of currency. (245.) 



70 



COST THE LIMIT OF PRICE. 



CHAPTEE III. 

COST, PRICE, LABOR, NATURAL WEALTH. 

78. The position was established in tlie preceding 
chapter, that Equity in any exchange of labor or com- 
modities — the products of labor — consists of the exact 
equality of burdens assumed by the parties to the trans- 
action. The amount ofhurden involved in rendej'ing 
a given amount of labor, or a given commodity, is 
technically denominated the " Cost" of that labor or 
commodity, and the labor or commodity which is re- 
ceived in return for that which is rendered is denom- 
inated the " Price'' of it. Hence, in as much as it is 
simple Equity that these two should be the equivalents 
of each other, or exactly equal in the amount of bur- 
den imposed, the scientific /ormzt/a is, that " Cost is 
THE Limit (or scientific measure) of Price. 

79. Cost is, then, the amount of repugnance over- 
come. Hence, according to this principle, the equita- 
ble price of any labor or commodity is measured by the 
amount of human repugnance or endurance which it 
has cost to perform the labor or produce the commod- 
ity. This, again, is the same thing as labor for labor j 
hiu^denfor burden^ or equality of burdens in exchange. 
Hence it implies that there is no other basis of price- 
no other ground for a demand for remuneration costing 
human endurance than the fact of human endurance 
itself. 



COST, PRICE, LABOR, NATURAL WEALTH. Tl 

80. This proposition — Cost the Limit of Price — so 
simple, so seemingly unimportant to the casual reader, 
and yet so obviously true when properly apprehended, so 
perfectly consonant with the natural sentiment of right in 
every mind, will appear by its results as previously 
stated to be one of the most radical propositions ever 
made. A rigid adhesion to it in commercial relations 
will revolutionize nearly every species of transaction 
among men. It will do so beneficently, however, for 
all classes, so that no alarm need be felt by any. We 
shall begin, in this chapter, to trace out some of these 
results, through the various operations of the principle 
upon the interests of society, and to contrast them with 
the effects of those principles which are now efficient in 
the same sphere. 

81. The first grand consequence resulting from the 
simple principle of Equity — Cost the Limit of Price — 
is, as already intimated, that whatever we possess 
which has cost no human labor — ivhich has imposed 
NO BURDEN ill its productioji — ivhich has cost 7ioih' 
ing — although it is susceptible of being property, is, 
nevertheless, not a rightful subject of price. All 
property of this kind, whether it is equally open to the 
enjoyment of all mankind — the property of the race, 
like air and water — or whether it attaches more par- 
ticularly to some Individual, like genius or skill, is de- 
nominated Natural Wealth. The formula relating 
to this subject is, then, that Natural Wealth bears 
NO Price — that is, that it cannot, of itself, be made 
the subject of price upon any equitable grounds what- 
soever — although the resignation of so much of it as 
is required for one's own convenience may be the basis 



72 COST THE LIMIT OF PRICE. 

of price on Ijie ground of a sacrifice endured, as will be 
explained in speaking of the comprehensiveness of the 
term Cost. (114.) Every thing valuable which is be- 
stowed by nature without any provision on the part of 
mankind or the Individual is Natural Wealthy such as 
fire and water, light and heai^ the earth, the air, the 
principles of science and mechanism, personal heauty, 
health, natural genius, talent, etc. 

82. The principle stated in the preceding Number 
settles, scientifically and beautifully, the vexed ques- 
tion ot the ownership of the soil. Land, in its natu- 
ral state, is natural wealth, equally belonging to all 
the inhabitants of the earth. It stands upon the same 
footing as the ocean and the atmosphere. But so soon 
as labor is bestowed upon any portion of it, which adds 
to it a positive value, the labor so bestowed is the 
rightful subject of price, to be measured like every 
other species of labor, by the cost or burden assumed 
in performing it. Thus the equitable price for lands 
upon which no labor has " been performed is zero ; the 
equitable price for wild lands which have merely been 
surveyed and bounded is the cost of surveying and 
bounding them ; if they have been cleared and fenced, 
then the equitable price is the cost of clearing and 
fencing in addition to that of surveying and bounding ; 
and if, still further, they have been ploughed, cultivated, 
and improved, then the equitable price is the cost of 
as much labor as, rightly applied, would take the same 
lands in the natural state and bring them into the 
state of improvement in which they are found. The 
reason of this latter modification is this, that lands 
may have been in cultivation for hundreds of yearSj 



COST, PRICE, LABOR, NATURAL WEALTH. 73 

and labor have been bestowed upon them each year, 
while the cost of such labor has been annually repaid by 
the successive crops, except so much of the same as re- 
mains on the land in the form of permanent artificial 
improvement. The cost which has been already re- 
paid ought not to be paid again, while that which re- 
mains invested, and is to be repaid out of the future 
crops, or other use, may be equitably demanded from 
the purchaser who is to receive such future benefit. If 
the lands have been so badly cultivated as to have de- 
teriorated instead of improved, it would be equitable 
that the seller should pay to the purchaser a sum equal 
to the cost of bringing them up to their natural state. 
Such cultivation is robbing the land, and incurring a 
debt to humanity, as if one were to find some means of 
tainting or exhausting the atmosphere, or fouling a 
stream from which others must draw their supplies. 

83. It is the same with the other- natural elements. 
Water as it flows past in the stream is natural wealth 
and not the subject of price. The man who should 
seize upon a stream ^f water and fence it up or turn it 
aside, for the purpose of levying a tribute upon those 
who lived below him upon the same stream, in the 
form of a price for their necessary supplies, would com- 
mit an obvious breach of natural law. But although 
water, in its natural condition, is not equitably suscep- 
tible of price, yet so soon as human labor is bestowed 
upon it by any person for the benefit of another, a 
price may be rightfully affixed to the water, to be pre- 
cisely measured by the cost or burden of the labor so 
bestowed. Every individual has a right to appropri- 
ate so much of the common natural wealth as is requi- 
1 



74 COST THE LIMIT OF PRICE. 

site to the supply of iiis wants. So soon as I have 
dipped up a pitcher full of water from the spring or 
stream, it is no longer mere natural wealth ; it is a 
product of my labor as well. It is thus my individual 
property. No one has a right to take it from me with- 
out my consent, and in case I do consent, I have an 
equitable and just right to demand a price equal to the 
burden I have assumed, which consists of the labor, 
the risk, or whatever else made it a burden. If I have 
merely dipped it up, the equitable price is a trifle prob- 
ably not worth considering ; but if I have carried it two 
miles over a burning plain, it may be considerable ; and 
if I have run the risk of carrying it for the sake of an- 
other through the brisk fire from an enemy's battery, 
the risk will enter equitably into the estimate of the 
price. (121.) In all these cases it is not really the 
natural wealth itself, the land or the water, which ac- 
quires a price, but the human labor and other elements 
which are bestowed upon it. JYothing is properly 
the rightful subject of price hut repugnance overcome. 
But as the portions of natural wealth to which hu- 
man labor has thus been added are the objects which 
are wanted by the purchaser, and which are delivered 
to him when the price is paid, it is natural to speak of 
them as bearing the price. 

84. It is obvious from this application of the princi- 
ple of cost, which we have seen is nothing but the sci- 
entific measure of equity, that simple equity cuts up 
by the roots every species of speculation in lands. It 
will be seen, in the next place, that it cuts up equally 
another species of speculation, which the world hardly 
suspects of being, although it is, both in principle* und 



COST, PRICE, LABOR, NATURAL WEALTH. Y5 

in its oppressive results, equally iniquitous — that is, 
speculation in taleiit^ natural skilly or genius. The 
definitions and principles above stated render it obvi- 
ous that no man has any just or equitable right to 
charge a price for that which it cost nothing of human 
labor to create. " Freely ye have received, freely 
give." 

85. A superior natural tact for the performance of 
any function or labor, renders it easier instead of 
harder to perform the function or labor. It makes 
the burden ordinarily lighter instead of heavier, and 
consequently, upon the Cost Principle, reduces instead 
of augmenting the price. I say, " ordinarily," be- 
cause the case may happen of a person having a high 
degree of natural ability for a particular kind of in- 
dustry, and having at the same time, from some spe- 
cial cause, an unusual repugnance to its performance, 
and it must be constantly remembered that it is the 
degree of personal repugnance overcome which meas- 
ures the price. As the rule, however, the taste or at- 
traction for a given pursuit accompanies and corre- 
sponds to the degree of excellence in it, and in that 
case the remarkable result above stated flows from the 
principle. 

86. Naturally enough a conclusion so strikingly dis- 
similar to all that is now seen in practice or enter- 
tained in idea will be received at first blush with some 
suspicions of its soundness. It will be found, however, 
upon examination, that the consequences of admitting 
it are all beneficent and harmonious. They are, in 
fact, indispensable to the solution of the problem of 
true social relations.^ 



76 COST THE LIMIT OF PRICE. 

87. Talent^ 7iatural skilly or genius^ distinguished 
from such ability as is the result of labor or acquisi- 
tion^ is one species of natural wealth. It is not, like 
earth, air and water, equally distributed by nature to 
all men, and cannot, therefore, be equally enjoyed by 
all. Those on whom it has been conferred in a high 
degree have a kind of enjoyment of it, in the fact of 
its possession, which cannot be participated with oth- 
ers. It is the same with health or personal beauty, or 
a naturally graceful deportment. In this particular 
way, although it is natural wealth, it is individual 
wealth also. • There are other ways, however, in which 
it is not individual or exclusive, 'but in which it may 
be partaken of by all around, as when we experience 
the pleasure of looking upon a beautiful countenance 
or a graceful figure, or when we enjoy the creations of 
another's genius, or the productions of another's natu- 
ral endowments. This kind of enjoyment is bestowed 
by nature gratuitously, and is not confined to the indi- 
vidual who produces it. It is the common patrimony 
of mankind as much as air, earth, and water. 

88. It follows from these considerations that neither 
the forensic talents bestowed by nature upon a Daniel 
Webster, nor the musical endowments of a Jenny Lind, 
nor the natural agility of the mountebank, constitute 
any legitimate or equitable basis of price, for the sim- 
ple reason that they have cost their possessors nothing 
— and it has already been settled that cost is the only 
legitimate ground of price. 

89. Observe, in the first place, that I do not say 
that the labor which it may require on their part to 
exercise these natural talents is not a legitimate basis 



COST, PRICE, LABOR, NATURAL WEALTH. 77 

of price. On the contrary, I affirm that it is so, and 
that such labor is the only basis of price in the per- 
formance — and hence that the price of the perform- 
ance is equitably limited by the precise amount of the 
labor in it, estimated according to its repugnance to 
the individual, relatively to other kinds of labor — not 
augmented one iota on account of the extraordinary 
natural ahilities which the performance demands. 
There is in that element no labor, no repugnance over- 
come, no cost^ and consequently no basis of price, 

90. Observe, in the next place, that labor expended 
prior to the performance, in cultivating the natural 
talent, and fitting it for the performance, is an element 
of cost, a due proportion of which may be equitably 
charged upon each specific exhibition of the talent. 
This point "vvill be more fully considered presently in 
treating of the constituents of cost. (121.) 

91. It will be objected that under this system talent 
and skill receive no protection. Talent and skill are 
intellectual strength, and it is not strength but weak- 
ness which demands protection. Talent and skill 
now enable their possessors to subject the world as 
effectually, through its industrial relations, as prowess 
and physical manhood formerly enabled their possessors 
to do so upon the battle-fields of past history. The 
dominion of physical conquest is now partially becoming 
extinct. We are in the midst of the reign of intellec- 
tual superiority, which is far more subtle and intricate 
in the modes of its tyrannical action. The discovery 
of the true laws of social order will not be, therefore, 
the discovery of increased facilities for talent or intel- 



78 COST THE LIMIT OF PRICE. 

lectual power to exert itself for its own immediate and 
selfish aggrandizement, but the precise contrary. 

92. At the same time talent and skill will always 
command, like physical manhood, a certain degree of 
homage, and secure, indirectly, more refined and yet 
more substantial rewards than direct appropriation would 
confer. In discussing the subject of price we are by 
no means discussing all the possible effects of perform- 
ance, but only that one which forms the basis of a de- 
mand for a direct equivalent or compensation, 

93. Price is that which a party may properly de- 
mand AS HIS RIGHT, in Consideration of services ren- 
dered. It relates, therefore, to exact justice between 
the parties, and justice has in it no touch of mercy, or 
gratitude, or benevolence — no tribute of admiration, no 
homage. It does not exclude the exercise of those sen- 
timents after its own demands are satisfied, but, for 
itself it knows nothing of that sort. Justice demands 
Equity, exact Equivalents, Burden for Burden ; and 
will be satisfied with nothing else. To understand the 
appropriate sphere of these various aitections we must 
individualize their functions. It is essential not only 
to the security of rights, but equally in order that be- 
nevolence or homage he felt and accepted as such, that 
the limits of each should be exactly defined. The ren- 
dition of justice is the basis, or platform, or prior con- 
dition upon which benevolence must rest. The slave 
feels little or no gratitude toward his master for any act 
of kindness which the master may do, because he is con- 
scious that the master is living in an unjust relation 
toward him, and that he oives him as matter of justice 
more than he grants as an indulgence. This apparent 



COST, PEICE, LABOR, NATURAL WEALTH. 79 

destitution of the sentiment of gratitude reacts upon 
the master, and he despises and depreciates the m.oral 
constitution of the slave. The fault is in the absence 
of the prior condition of Justice^ which alone authorizes 
benevolence, which then inspires gratitude, and all con- 
spire to institute and maintain friendly and harmonious 
relations. A charity bestowed while justice is with- 
held is always an insult. 

94. Again, according to a law of the human mind, 
injustice persisted in begets aversion or hatred on the 
part of the perpetrator as well, toward the object 
of it. But justice cannot be rendered while one is 
ignorant of what justice is ; and since no one who does 
not know that Cost is the Limit of Price knows what 
the limits of justice are, it follows that every one has 
been living in relations of injustice toward all around 
him. A partial consciousness of this truth tends still 
farther to inspire ill-will on the part of the governors 
toward the- governed, of the employers toward the em- 
ployed, and of masters toward slaves. Hence, it will be 
perceived that a denial of justice operates through two 
channels to prevent the natural flow of benevolence, by 
hindering its bestowment, at the same time that it 
enfeebles or destroys the appreciation of it by the re- 
cipient. 

95. Still again, from ignorance of the landmarks of 
justice or Equity, acts are continually done under the 
supposition that justice demands them, and with no 
sentiment of benevolence, which should fall within the 
province of benevolence, while the same ignorance on 
the other hand hinders their acknowledgment as 
benevolent acts, and prevents, consequently, the appro- 



80 COST THE LIMIT OF PRICE. 

priate sentiment of gratitude or reciprocal benevolence, 
which should be the result. 

96. The magnificent testimonial bestowed by the En- 
glish people upon Rowland Hill, for his conception of the 
idea of cheap postage, and his exertions in behalf of the 
reform, had in it nothing discordant with true principles, 
because it was bestowed as a gratuitous homage and ac- 
cepted as such. Whenever all obstructions to the nat- 
ural exuberance of benevolence toward those who con- 
fer benefits upon us are removed by the establishment of 
equitable relations, such voluntary tributes repeated on 
all hands, will furnish a richer inheritance for genius than 
the beggarly and precarious subsistence which now 
enures from pensions and patent-laws. The testimo- 
nial to Rowland Hill was not the price of his services, 
any more than a bridal present is the price of affection. 
Had he opened an account of debtor and creditor with 
the nation, and charged them a hundred thousand pounds 
as the price of his services, gratitude would have been 
extinguished by the preposterous pretension, and benev- 
olence have been converted into aversion and disgust. 
The people, ignorant of the law of equivalents as a 
principle^ would have felt it as an instinct^ and have 
been repelled unwittingly by the breach of it. To make- 
the higher class of services a matter of price at all 
somewhat depreciates their estimate. The artist and 
the inventor is apt to feel something akin to degrada- 
tion, when forced to prefer a pecuniary demand in re- 
turn for the fruits of his genius. Every genuine artist 
has an instinct for being an amateur perforiner solely. 
There is an intimation in this fact that, in the true 
social order the rewards of genius will either cease to 



COST^ PRICEj LABOR, NATURAL WEALTH. 81 

be pecuniary altogether, or if not, that they will be 
wholly abandoned to the voluntary largesse of man- 
kind. (174.) 

97. The Cost Principle deals wholly with price — 
that is, with that to which the party rendering the ser- 
vice should limit his demand, if fixed hy himself, not 
to Y/hat it is proper, or becoming, or natural that others 
should bestow as a gratuity, which latter is a matter 
solely for their consideration. This last is not his 
affair, 

98. It is in this rigid sense that it is affirmed that 
Jenny Lind has no equitable right to charge more for 
an hour expended in singing than any other person 
should receive for an hour of labor equally repugnant, 
and which has involved equal contingencies of prior la- 
bor and the like. Even that price is then divisible 
among all who hear her. The refining results of this 
operation of the principle in diffusing the benefits of 
superior endowments in every sphere among the whole 
people will be traced out into infinite ramifications by 
the reader for himself. 

99. The objection that men of genius, inventors, and 
those who exercise callings which are purely attractive, 
are not provided by this principle with the means of ob- 
taining a livelihood, will be answered under another 
head. (174.) 

100. There is another subtle and plausible objection 
which may be urged to this position, in relation to nat- 
ural genius, talent, or skill, and which demands no lit- 
tle rigor of attention to detect its fallacy. It may be 
said that JVature deals with man liberally, in proportion 
to his endowments ; that is, that she crowns with great- 



82 COST THE LIMIT OF PRICE. 

er exuberance of results the exertions of tlie strong 
man and the Y>^ise man than she does those of the weak 
and the simple-minded, and hence that there can be no 
essential injustice in doing precisely what Nature herself 
does — that is, in maintaining so much inequality as re- 
sults from giving to each an equivalent in the products 
of others to the products of his own powers. If, on 
the contrary, a man who can produce more largely and 
better, from superior ability, exchanges with one who 
produces less abundant and inferior commodities, solely 
according to the intrinsic hardship or cost of the la- 
bor to each — no reference whatever being had to the 
amount or quality of the products — it is clear that 
the man of the highest capacity loses the advantage in 
the transaction which Nature has conferred upon him, 
and which seems, therefore, to be justified by the ordi- 
nances of Nature. It is clear that if he gets in the ex- 
change only so much of the products of the other as 
would have been the result of his oion superior ability 
applied in that direction^ that he only gets what JVa- 
iure would have given him if he had dealt directly with 
her. Why, then, is it not right that he should have 
as much advantage in the bargain as he has m the di- 
rect production 1 

101. The objection is here strongly put in order that 
it may be completely disposed of. It is answered as 
follows : 

It is the destiny of man to rise into higher relations 
than those which he holds with Nature. When man 
deals with Nature he is dealing with an abject servant 
or slave. There is no equality nor reciprocity be- 
tween the parties. Man is a Sovereign and Nature 



COST, PRICE, LASOa, NATURAL WEALTH. 83 

his minister. He extorts from her rightfully what- 
ever she can he made to yield. The legitimate busi- 
ness of man is the conquest and subjugation of Na- 
ture, and the law of superior force is the legitimate 
law of conquest and subjugation. But so soon as 
man comes into relations with his fellow-man the dis- 
proportion ceases. He is then dealing with his peers. 
The legitimate object of the intercourse is no longer 
the same. It is not now conquest and subjugation, but 
equipoise, and the freedom of all. A higher relation- 
ship intervenes, and the balance of concurrent Sove- 
reignties can only be established and maintained by 
acknowledging the law of that relationship. For the 
strong man, physically or intellectually, to avail himself 
to his private advantage, of his superior strength, as the 
method of his intercourse with his fellow-men, is finally 
to accumulate all power in the hands of the few, and 
in the mean time to inaugurate the reign of discord, 
collision, and war. 

102. This subtile but most important distinction is 
already practically acknowledged in a large circle of 
human affairs. The world is already sufficiently pro- 
gressed, in civilized countries at least, to act upon this 
distinction between inanimate nature and rational be- 
ings, so far as relates to the immediate exertion of 
physical strength — the simple force of bone and muscle 
directly applied. The strong man is not now justified 
by the common sense of right in seizing and appropri- 
ating the wealth of the weak, simply because he can, 
while at the same time, when dealing with Nature, he 
is never reproved for compelling her to the utmost of 
his power over her. Right is distinguished from might 



84 COST THE LIMIT OF PKICE. 

with reference to men — a distinction which, as respects 
Nature, does not exist. 

103. As relates to intellectual superiority, the same 
distinction is likewise already acknowledged to an in- 
definite and fluctuating extent. The sharper is re- 
strained from availing himself of his quickness of wit 
by the intervention of stringent laws and exemplary 
penalties. Upon what principle is that? It is the ad- 
mission that man ought not — that it is unjust or ine- 
quitable that man should use his superior mental en- 
dowments to his own private advantage, in deahng with 
merij while no such restriction lies upon him when deal- 
ing with Mature, He is bound to deal with them^ con- 
trary to the fact, precisely as if they had the same 
amount of strength and mental power as he has him- 
self, or, rather, as if it were not a question of strength 
but of right ; in the same manner as, according to the 
canons of international law, the large and powerful 
state recognizes the equal sovereignty of the smallest 
independent community. The law of intercourse be- 
tween Individual Sovereigns is the same as between the 
concrete Sovereignties of existing States. To commit 
a breach of this higher law of Sovereign peerage, is to 
secure to the stronger party an immediate and appar- 
ent advantage, to the destruction of the less obvious 
but more substantial benefits resulting to both, from 
the existence of a true social equilibrium. Such is the 
policy of the brigand and the pirate, who pounce 
upon their booty for the supply of their immediate 
wants — because they can — regardless of the fact that 
their practices will prove the disruption of society and 



COST, PRICE5 LABORj NATURAL WEALTH. .85 

end in the destruction of the very commerce upon 
which they prey. 

104. In the intellectual sphere, the admission of this 
higher law has hitherto been made only up to an unascer- 
tained line. Superior talent or skill, naturally bestow- 
ed, have always been, and are still, practically recog- 
nized as giving superior right, except in the few ex- 
treme cases in which the enormity of the principle is 
too obvious to be overlooked, and in which the exercise 
of that superiority is defined by Fraud, Gambling, 
Swindling, or some other of the euphonious epithets by 
which society stigmatizes, in its ultimates, a rule of 
conduct which, in its more general and pervading ap- 
plications, it sanctions and approves. Whenever the 
perception of this true law shall have been thoroughly 
awakened — when the public mind shall .be wholly pen- 
etrated by the conviction that the employment of either 
physical or intellectual power, had by natural endow- 
ment, in any transaction between Qnen.^ in such a man- 
ner as to gain an immediate and selfish advantage to 
the stronger party, is of the essential nature of fraud, 
swindling, and robbery, society will rise to a new plane, 
and will then find a development as superior to our 
present civilization as that is to the savage state — a 
development in which those who surrender most will as 
truly find their highest emolument as those who surren- 
der least. Thus true science conducts us back, in 
some sense, to the sublime precept of religion, " He 
that would be greatest among you let him serve.'' 

105. So farj then, as the individual consumes directly 
products of his own labor, he enjoys the immediate ad- 
vantage of his own talent or skill, as the strong man 

8 



86 COST THE LIMIT OF PRICE. 

enjoys liis strength or the beautiful woman her beauty. 
But the moment he proposes to exchange his labor with 
other human beings, it is the harmonic law that he 
shall renounce that advantage entirely, recognizing 
the full equality of the inferior party. To claim it is 
to introduce an element into the social relations as dis- 
turbing in its nature as it would be if the handsome 
woman were to claim of right superior rank by virtue 
of her beauty, or the strong man impunity from the law 
by virtue of his strength. 

106. It is characteristic of the most progressed 
or humanized society, that the strong recognizes the 
equality of the weak. Hence the constant advance- 
ment of woman in the relative scale of position — the 
sinking of physical superiority before intellectual, and 
finally of intellectual before the spiritual, affectionate, 
and sesthetic. That sublime characteristic of the high- 
est type of humanity is wholly wanting in the demand 
of the superior worker, that the inferior shall make up 
the difference in excess of labor. It is pre-eminently 
exhibited, on the contrary, and the highest attainment 
of civilization achieved, when the basis of the exchange 
is shifted from the equality of products to the equality 
of burdens. The strong says to the weak, labor is 
painful, and imposes a burden. It is not just between 

• beings who hold human relations, that you, who are 
weak, shall be required to endure a greater burden than 
I, who am strong. Hence we will exchange labor for 
labor, not according to its fruitfuiness, but according 
to the repugnance which has to be overcome. 

107. Take an illustration as between nations. A 
small but industrious and civilized people inhabit a 



COST, PEICE, LABOa, NATURAL WEALTH. 87 

country lying between the dominions of a powerful em- 
pire on one side, and hordes of treacherous savages on 
the other, who threaten to invade and lay waste the 
country. The feeble nation applies to the powerful one 
to extend a degree of protection over them, by estab- 
lishing forts upon the frontier and adding the weight 
of their influence in overawing the savage tribes. As- 
sume that the cost of the aid thus rendered is equal 
to one million of dollars per annum, and that by esti- 
mate it saves the whole property of the weaker nation 
from destruction, the income upon which amounts to 
a hundred million of dollars. What tribute in the na- 
ture of payment shall the weaker nation render to the 
stronger 1 According to one rule it w^ill be an 
amount equal to the expenditure by the stronger. 
According to the other it will be an amount equal 
to the benefit incurred, namely, a yearly tribute equal 
to the whole products of the land. Is it not clear 
which is the humanitary, courteous, or civilized ba- 
sis of the transaction and which the bp.rbarous one? 
According to the latter, the choice of the people whose 
safety is endangered lies between two sets of sav- 
ages, each of whom will rob them equally of all they 
possess. Is it not clear, then, that the humanitary ba- 
sis of remuneration is not measured by the extent of 
the benefit conferred — the Value — but by the extent of 
the burden assumed — the Cost. And is it not clear, 
again, in the case supposed, if the strong nation were 
still more powerful, so that the use of its name merely 
were a terror to its savage neighbors, and would sufiice, 
with less extensive fortifications, as a mere demonstra- 
tion of the animus to resist, or with no fortifications 



00 COST THE LIMIT OF PRICE. 

at all, to restrain tliem, that tlie cost of the defence 
would be decreased by such superiority of strength and 
weight of name, and that consequently the price of it 
should he diminished likewise, instead of being aug- 
mented thereby. 

Carry out the analogy of this illustration to the 
case of the way in which natural talent and skill 
are made the basis of price in private transactions, 
and it will be perceived that the principle now acted 
on is the barbarous principle — the principle of con- 
quest and rapine — the principle of an equality of bene- 
Jits demanded between parties, one of whom is capa- 
ble of conferring great benefits at slight cost, and the 
other only capable of conferring small ones at an equal 
or greater amount of cost — a principle destructive of 
equality, equipoise, and harmony, and under the opera- 
tion of which the weaker are inevitably crushed and 
devoured by the stronger, to the utter annihilation of 
all hope of realizing the higher and more beautiful 
phases of possible human society. 

108. To illustrate still further. When a robust 
and hearty youth rises and stands, yielding his seat 
to a woman, an old man, or an invalid, he does so 
because, in consequence of his strength, it costs him 
less to stand — it is less repugnant for him to do so 
than for the other. The superior power reduces the 
cost^ and all refined and well-developed manhood ad- 
mires the vindication of the principle involved, even 
while not understanding it as such. In this transac- 
tion there is no price dem^anded, but if there were, it 
is obvious that the price to the robust man for yielding 
his advantage should be less than to the feeble, while 



COST, PRICE, LABOR, NATURAL WEALTH. b\) 

upon the value principle it would be more. In this 
species of intercourse we already, then, draw the line 
between cultivated and advanced humanity, and bar- 
barous or boorish humanity, precisely where these two 
principles diverge. With a more complete efflorescence 
of Humanitary Ethics, true principle will supersede 
the false throughout the whole range of personal trans- 
actions. The adoption of the Cost Principle in com- 
merce will not only insure the equitable distribution of 
wealth, and disperse the manifold evils which grow out 
of the pervading injustice of the existing system, but 
it will do more — it vvill crown the common honors of 
life with a halo of mutual urbanity, and render the 
daily interchange of labor and of ordinary commodi- 
ties a perpetual sacrament of fraternal affection. 

109. It results, then, that the natural and neces- 
sary effect of the Cost Principle is to limit the rela- 
tive power and advantage of the intellectually strong 
over the intellectually weak in the same manner as 
Law, Morality, Religion, Machinery, and the other 
appliances of civilization have already, in civilized 
countries, partially limited the power and neutralized 
the advantage of the physically strong over the phys- 
ically weak — and to complete, even in the physical 
sphere, what Law, Morality, Religion, Machinery, and 
the other appliances of civilization have hitherto failed 
to accomplish, for the want of the more definite sci- 
ence of the subject. 

110. But in order to the general adoption of this 
regulating principle, is not the consent of the stijong 
man indispensable as well as that of the weak ? By 
what means shall he be persuaded to make the sacri- 



90 COST THE LIMIT OF PRICE. 

fice of his superior advantage'? Is not the appeal 
solely to his benevolence, and has not past experience 
demonstrated that all such appeals are nearly power- 
less against the controlling current of personal inter- 
ests 1 

111. Certainly the concurrence of both the power- 
ful and the feeble is alike requisite to the complete 
and general adoption of the Cost Principle, but that 
cannot be said to be necessary to commence its appli- 
cation. It has already been stated that the Cost Prin- 
ciple affords the means to the laboring classes, who are 
kept now in comparative weakness and ignorance, of 
stepping out from under the oppressions of capital and 
leaving it with no foundation on which to rest in its 
usurped superiority over labor. Hence the weak are 
enabled by it to cope with the strong, while the strong 
themselves will not long resist the innovation, for the 
reason that their own positive strength is also increased 
by the same means. It is only their relative superi- 
ority which is reduced by it. In other words, all 
classes will have their condition positively improved, 
the rich only a little less than the poor, so that the 
frightful inequalities of the present system will be ob- 
literated and extinguished. An analogue of this effect 
is found in the material sphere, in the invention of gun- 
powder and firearms, for example. A pistol puts a 
small man and a large man upon the same footing of 
strength, or perhaps rather reverses it a little, as the 
large man presents a broader surface to the deadly 
aim. Still either party is a more powerful man with 
than without it. It serves to establish a balance of 
power, while at the same time it augments the power 



COST, PRICE, LABOR, NATURAL WEALTH, 91 

of both. It is tlie same witli larger arms and larger 
bodies of men. Hence the pistol, the blunderbuss, 
and the carronade have been among the greatest civil- 
izers of mankind. It is the same, again, with laws 
and the civil state which have been instituted to equal- 
ize the diversities of strength among men by substi- 
tuting arbitrary rules for physical force. Like fire- 
arms and gunpowder, they are a barbarous remedy for 
a more barbarous evil, and will give place, in turn, 
with the progress of man, to the government of mere 
principles, accepted into and proving operative upon 
the individual mind. 

112. In this manner the Cost Principle has in it 
the means of first compelling and then reconciling to 
its adoption those to whom the possession of superior 
intellectual powers or cunning, with the accumulations 
of capital, give now the ascendency. This, however, 
only so far as such compulsion shall prove necessary. 
It is a grand mistake to assume, as the inclusive rule, 
that those who have the best end of the bargain in our 
present iniquitous social relations are averse to a re- 
organization upon the basis of justice. The ignorant 
and selfish among them are so, but it is among this 
superior class that the best and most devoted friends 
of the rights of man are likely to be found. The pro- 
gress of the race has always been ofiicered by leaders 
from among the Patricians. It is among those who 
gain the advantage, and are thrown to the surface and 
exposed to the blessed air and light of Heaven by the 
fluctuations of the turbulent ocean of human affairs, 
that the greatest development occurs ; and along with 
development comes the sentiment of humanity aifd 



92 COST THE LIMIT OF PRICE. 

human brotlierliood. The masses of men have seldoni 
been indebted solely to themselves for what they have 
at any time gained. The most unbounded benevolence 
is often coupled with the possession of great wealth. 
But how often has the sentiment been repelled and 
made to recoil upon itself with disappointment and 
disgust at the results of its own efforts to benefit man- 
kind ! How often has the harsh lesson been taught to 
the rich and the good that the sentiment is powerless 
without the science— that Love, without its comple- 
ment in Wisdom, is blind and destructive of its own 
ends ! 

113. Hence, whenever a true science of society shall 
have been demonstrably discovered, when the means 
of permanent benefit to the race shall be unquestiona- 
bly at hand, benevolent capitalists will assuredly be 
found in the first ranks of those who will concur to 
realize the higher results of human society, to which 
such knowledge is competent to conduct. The ad- 
vanced and highly developed among men are always 
ready to sacrifice their relative superiority for the 
greater good of all, for no other reason than simply 
because they are men. Hence, again, although the 
Cost Principle is fully adequate to enable the poor, 
feeble, and oppressed classes to emancipate themselves 
from the oppressions of capital, it will, in practice be 
put to no such strain. The future will show that the 
rich and poor will freely co-operate with hearty sin- 
cerity in the work of social regeneration, upon scien- 
tific and truly constructive principles. 

114. It is proper at this point to show more expli- 
citly the extension and comprehensiveness of the term 



COST, PRICE, LABORj NATURAL WEALTH. . 93 

Cost. It lias been spoken of in the preceding pages 
chiefly as human repugnance overcome in the perform- 
ance of labor. It is more accurate to define it, how- 
ever, simply as human repugnance overcome in any 
transaction. It has both an active or positive, and a 
passive or negative aspect, to which last a slight refer- 
ence has already been had. (81.) , The repugnance 
overcome in the actual performance of labor is the 
active phase of the subject, but there is also repugnance 
overcome in the mere sacrifice or surrender of any 
thing which we possess, and which we require at the 
time for our own convenience or happiness. This last 
is the passive aspect of Cost. Thus, for example, if I 
paint pictures or manufacture watches for sale, the 
cost, and consequently the price at which I must sell 
them, to deal upon the equitable principle, is the 
amount of labor contained in them ; but, if I have, in 
my possession — not as an article of merchandise, but 
for my own pleasure and convenience — a watch or a 
favorite painting — say, for example, it is a present 
from a friend, for which reason I attach to it a particular 
value — and you, taking a fancy to it, wish to induce me 
to part with it, then the legitimate measure of price is 
the amount of sacrifice which it is to me, in other words, 
the degree of repugnance which I feel to surrendering 
it, how much soever that may exceed the positive Cost of 
the article, and whatever relation it may hold to its 
positive Value. 

115. It is the same, as already observed, even with 
reference to natural wealthy in which there is no posi- 
tive Cost, and so of every thing which we require, in 
kind, for our own use. (81.) Thus, for example, al- 



94 COST THE LIMIT OF PEICE. 

tliough land in its wild state is not riglitfully the 
subject of price, and although, when simply enclosed, 
its positive Cost is the labor of enclosing it, yet if 
1 have selected a pleasant situation for my own habi- 
tation and culture, and am induced to part with it 
for the accommodation of another, the price in that 
case is legitimately augmented by wdiatever amount of 
repugnance I may feel to making the surrender. 

116. The exact thinker will readily perceive the dis- 
tinction between objects of all sorts which are required 
for personal convenience at the time, and surplus prop- 
erty or capital not needed for present use, or needed 
only as the means of procuring other conveniences by 
means of exchange — between things properly in com- 
merce, and things taken out of commerce by special 
appropriation. In the latter case the labor contained 
in. or bestowed upon the property is the whole of its 
equitable price. In the former it is augmented by the 
amount of sacrifice experienced in parting with it, occa- 
sioned by the present need. 

117. In the case of passive or negative Cost — the 
mere repugnance to the surrender of what is at the 
time serving a personal purpose, none but the party 
making the surrender can know the real extent of the 
sacrifice, or can judge w^ith accuracy of the equity of 
the price charged. Hence, with reference to things 
not properly in commerce, a common average of esti- 
mate cannot be attained as in the ordinary case of 
exchanges. (195.) But even here the operation of the 
principle is quite distinct from that of value as the 
limit of price. The party making the surrender will 
satisfy his own conscience by estimating the degree of 



COST, PRICE, LABORj NATURAL WEALTH. 95 

sacrifice to Mm, and not as under the value standard 
by estimating the degree of the want of the other party. 
In other words, whenever he has arrived at a price 
which he would prefer to take rather than not sell, he is 
restrained from going farther, without inquiring whether 
he has reached the highest point to which the pur- 
chaser would go. This distinction between the active 
Cost of the labor of production and the passive Cost of 
surrender is important in various ways, and especially, 
as we shall see, in settling the question of interest or 
rent on capital. (226.) 

118. As it is the positive Cost of the labor of pro- 
duction, alone, which relates to things properly in com- 
merce, it is that which is usually meant by Cost, unless 
the repugnance of surrender is especially mentioned in 
addition. 

119. There is still another observation in relation 
to the comprehensiveness of the term Cost. Although 
it refers back, in its rigid*technical sense, to the original 
labor of production, measured by its repugnance, and 
fixes the price in labor, still it holds good as the equi- 
table measure of price with reference to all articles 
purchased with money, under the present system, and 
not traced back to their component, labor. Thus an 
article purchased for a given price in money, and sold 
again for the same amount of money, plus the labor of 
the transaction, is sold for Cost. The Cost Principle 
is, therefore, merely the entire ahandonmeiit of profit 
making, whether it relates to labor production or deal- 
ings in money. The method of keeping a shop and 
selling goods upon the Cost Principle, during the tran- 
sition period, that is while the community is too small 



96 COST THE LIMIT OF PRICE. 

to supply all its own wants, is to charge for each arti- 
cle its original money Cost with all the money charges 
and contingencies, in mo7iey^ and the labor of buying 
handling, and selling, in labor ^ the time occupied in the 
transaction being measured by the clock, and charged 
according to the estimated repugnance of that kind of 
labor. A yard of cloth is, therefore, so many cents in" 
money and so many minutes in labor. The particulars 
of the management of such stores, and the immense 
power which they exert over the commercial habits of 
large districts of country within their influence, will be 
shown in Mr. Warren's work on Practical Details. 

120. The comprehensiveness of the term Labor 
needs also to be defined. By Labor is meant, in the 
first place, not merely manual but intellectual and oral 
labor as well — whatever is done or performed by the 
hand, head, or tongue, and which involves repugnance 
or painfulness overcome — the measure of price being 
based upon the well-known ^-inciple that man natu- 
rally seeks the agreeable and shuns that which is disa- 
greeable or painful. 

121. In the second place, the Labor by which price 
is measured is not always merely the particular per- 
formance done at the time. Whatever has required 
an especial skill obtained by previous labor, unproduc- 
tive at the time, has its price augmented by its own due 
proportion of such loss, from previous necessary unpro- 
ductive labor. For example, the surgeon may equi- 
tably charge for each surgical operation not only the 
time occupied in it, measured by its repugnance, but 
an aliquot portion of the time necessarily expended in 
acquiring the knowledge to enable him to do it in a skillful 



COSl, PRICE, LABOR, NATURAL WEALTH. 97 

manner, according to tlie repugnance to him of that 
preliminary labor. So of every other necessary con^ 
tingency — all necessai-y contingencies^ such as prior 
preparatory labor ^ risk incurred^ etc.^ entering into 
any constituti7ig a portion of Cost, 

122. It results from what has been said that the 
basis of vendible property is human labor, and that 
the measure of such property is the amount of labor 
"which there is, so to speak, laid up in 'the article owned. 
The article is the product of labor, and is therefore the 
representative of labor. Price is that which is given 
either for labor directly, or for property, which is the 
product of labor — that is, for labor indirectly, and it 
should therefore be a precise equivalent for that labor. 
The only proper ground of difference, then, between 
the price of a side-saddle and the price of a house, is 
the difference in the amount of human labor vfhich has 
been bestowed upon the one and upon the other. It 
follows, again-, that the mode of arriving at the legiti- 
mate price of any article whatever is to reduce it first 
to labor. For example : if we take a house to pieces, 
we trace it back to trees growing in the woods, to clay, 
and sand, and lime, and iron, etc., lying in the earth. 
All that makes it a house, and entitles it to a price, as 
property, is the human labor that there is in it. That 
house over the way is, then, so many hours of labor at 
brick-making, so many hours of carpenter's work, so 
many of lime-burning, so many of iron-work, nail-cut- 
ting, so many at glass-blowing, so many at hauling, so 
many at planning, draughting, etc., etc., etc. The 
whole house is nothing but human labor dried, pre- 
served, laid away. Each of these hours of labor in 
9 



98 COST THE LIMIT OF PRICE. 

different occupations, may have a different degree of 
repugnance, so tliat to estimate the gross amount of 
labor in the house it is necessary to bring them all to 
a common denomination. This is done by reducing 
them to the standard degree of repugnance in the 
standard labor — corn-raising — which is then expressed 
in the standard product of that kind of labor, namely, 
so many pounds of corn. Hence the price of a. house, 
or of any other object, is said to be so msnj pou7ids, 
or so many hours, meaning so many pounds of corn, or 
so many hours of labor at corn-raising, in the same 
manner as we now say so many dollars and cents. By 
this means all price is constantly referred to labor, and 
rendered definite, instead of being referred to a stand- 
ard which is itself continually expanding and con- 
tracting by all the contingencies of speculation or 
trade. (T7.) 

123. The first point is to obtain a standard for a 
single locality, after which it is quite easy to adjust 
the standard of other localities to it. Agricultural 
labor is first selected, because it is the great staple 
branch of human industry. The most staple article 
of agricultural product is then taken, which for this 
country, and especially for the great valley of the Mis- 
sissippi, is Indian corn. In another country it may be 
wheat or something else, although Indian corn, wher- 
ever it is produced, will be found to have more of the 
appropriate qualities for a standard than any other ar- 
ticle whatsoever, being more invariable in quality, more 
uniform in the amount produced by the same amount 
of labor in a given locality, and more uniform in the 
extent of the demand than any other article. At a 



COSTj PRICE, LABOE, NATURAL WEALTH. 99 

given locality, or, as I have stated, at a great variety 
of localities in the Western States, the standard pro- 
duct of Indian corn is twenty pounds to the hour's la- 
bor — the measurement by pounds being also more in- 
flexible or less variant than that by bulk. If, then, in 
some other locality, as, for example, Ncav England, the 
product of an hour's labor devoted to raising corn is 
only ten pounds of corn, the equivalent of the standard 
hour's labor there v^^ill be ten pounds of corn, while in 
the West it will be twenty pounds. It is the hour's 
labor in that species of agriculture which is therefore 
the actual unit of comparison, of which the product, 
whatever it may be, is the local representative. And 
in the same manner, in another country wheat may be 
the standard, as, for example, in England, and may be 
reckoned at ten pounds to the hour, or whatever is 
found by trial to be the fact. The reduction of the 
standard of one locality to that ©f another, will then 
be no more difficult than the reduction of different cur- 
rencies to one value, as now practiced. 

124. There is an absolute necessity for some stand- 
ard of cost^ and it is not a question of principle but of 
expediency what article is adopted. It is the same 
necessity which is recognized at present for a standard 
of value^ which is sought for, and by some persons erro- 
neously supposed to be found, in money. The question 
may still b^ asked : Why not employ money as the 
standard vfith which to compare other things, and as a 
circulating medium, as is done now 1 The answer is 
found in the uncertain and fluctuating nature of mo- 
ney — ^in the fact that it represents nothing definite. 



100 COST THE LIMIT OF PillCE. 

125. Money has professedly two uses : 1. As a 
standard of value, and 2. As a circulating medium. 

First, tlien, as a standard of value or a measure with 
which to compare other values. It does not even pro- 
fess to be a standard of cost. It has no relation what- 
ever to the cost, or, in other words, to the labor which 
there is in the different commodities for which it is 
given as price, because there is no question about cost 
in existing commerce, the value alone being taken into 
account. But value is incapable of a scientific esti- 
mate, as will be more specifically shown in the next 
chapter. (134.) Hence it is fluctuating because it 
relates to nothing definite. But what are the capaci- 
ties of the yard-stick itself 1 Is it fixed or elastic? 
The theory is, that gold and silver are selected as stand- 
ards of value because the quantity of those commodi- 
ties in the world is more uniform than that of most 
other articles. If tlie fact be granted, then gold and 
silver have one of the fitting properties of a standard. 
But gold and silver are not convenient as a circulating 
medium. Hence paper money is assumed as a repre- 
sentative of specie. So far very well again. There 
was a time when bank-paper was an exact representa- 
tion of specie, if it represented nothing else. The old 
bank of Amsterdam, the mother of the banking system, 
issued only dollar for dollar. Her bills were merely 
certificates of deposit for so much specie. So far, 
then, the yard-stick did not stretch nor contract, while 
the paper money was more convenient as a medium of 
circulation than the specie. But with the development 
of the banking system two, three, five, or more dollars 
of paper money are issued for one dollar of specie on 



COST, PRICEj LABOIi, NATURAL WEALTH. 101 

deposit. The amomit is tlien expanded and con- 
tracted, according to the fluctuations of trade and the 
judgments or speculating interests of perhaps five hun- 
dred different boards of bank directors. Ilow is it, 
then, with the inflexibility of your standard 1 Your 
yard- stick is one year one foot long and the next year 
five feet long. The problem of existing finance, then, 
is to measure values which are in their nature posi- 
tively incapable of measurement — by money, which is 
in its nature positively incapable of measuring any 
thing. It is therefore uncertainty X fluctuation — price, 

126. There is no such thing, therefore, in money as 
a standard of value. As a circulating medium merely, 
considering no other properties, nor the reasons why 
we should have a circulating medium at all, nothing 
better can be devised than paper money. It is thin, 
light, pliant, and convenient in all respects. 

127. To make gold the standard of co^i^, instead of 
value, would be to take as much gold as is ordinarily 
dug in an hour in those countries where it is procured, 
say California, as the price of an hour's labor in other 
branches of industry equally troublesome and repug- 
nant. This may perhaps be one dollar, which w^ould 
make the price of labor a dollar an hour,, and the dif- 
ference between that price in this article and the usual 
price of labor in the same article — which is rendered 
necessary now, as the means of acquiring all other com- 
modities — is some indication of the degree to which la- 
bor is robbed by adopting- the value standard instead 
of the cost standard of price. But the fact is, that no 
average of the product of gold-digging can be made. 
It is proverbially uncertain. The product of gold. 



102 COST THE LIMIT OF PRICE. 

therefore, regarded as a standard of any tiling, is as 
nearly worthless as the product of any article can be. 
The demand for it in the arts is also exceptional and 
uncertain. Apart from the factitious demand result- 
ing from the fact that it is made a nominal standard 
and a medium, it is not in any sense a staple article. 
It would be just as philosophical to measure all other 
industry by the product of the mackerel fishery, or the 
manufacture of rock candy or castor oil, as it would be 
to measure it by gold. The result of all this investi- 
gation is therefore this : that the product of gold and, 
for the same reason, that of silver, is quite unfit for the 
first purpose we have in view, which is to select a sta- 
ple species of labor with which to compare other labor, 
while corn or wheat does fulfill those conditions ; and, 
2. That paper is just what is wanted as a circulating 
medium, provided it can be made to rest upon a proper 
basis, and represent what ought to be represented by a 
circulating medium. 

128. Now what is it which ought to be represented 
by a circulating medium 1 Clearly it is price — the 
price of commodities. The pledge or promise should 
be exactly equivalent to, as it stands in the place of, 
the commodity or commodities to be given hereafter. 
These commodities, which the paper stands in the 
place of, are the price of what was received. The 
equitable limit of price is, we have seen, the cost of 
the articles received. The promise is therefore rightly 
the equivalent of, or goes to the extent of, the cost of 
the articles received. But the cost of an article is, we 
have seen, the labor there is in it, rightly measured. 
Every issue of the circulating medium should therefore 



COST, PRICE, LABOR, NATURAL WEALTH. 103 

be a representative of, or pledge for, a certain amount 
of human labor, or for some commodity wliich has in 
it an equal amount of human labor ; and, to avoid all 
question about what commodity shall be substituted, it 
is proper that a staple or standard article, the cost of 
which all agree upon, should be selected. 

We return, then, to the Labor Note as the legiti- 
mate germ of a circulating medium. 



104 COST THE LIMIT OF PRICE. 



CHAPTEE IV. 

VALUE DISTINGUISHED FROM COST. 

129. The second grand result from tlie principle of 
Equity — Cost the Limit of Price — is that the value of 
labor or of a commodity has nothing whatever to do 
legitimately with fixing the price of the labor or com- 
modity. This proposition would be deduced partially 
from what has been already shown ; it requires, how- 
ever, to be more explicitly stated and more conclusively 
demonstrated. It is, as well as the result considered 
in the last chapter in relation to natural skill or talent, 
quite new, and therefore surprising. 

130. There is certainly nothing more reasonable, 
according to existing ideas, than that " a thing ought to 
bring what it is worfh,^^ No proposition could be 
more seemingly innocent upon the face of it than that. 
(19.) There is no statement upon any subject upon 
which mankind would more generally concur, and 
yet that statement covers a fallacy which lies at 
the basis of the prevalent system of exploitation 
or civilized cannibalism. It is precisely at this point 
that the whole world has committed its most fatal 
blunder. It will be the purpose of this chapter to 
expose that error so obviously that it can no longer 
lurk in obscurity even in the least enlightened mind. 
To that end I beg the especial attention of the reader 



VALUE DISTINGUISHED FROM COST, 105 

to the teclmical distinction between Value ana Cost — ■ 
a point of great importance to this whole discussion. 

131. " What a thing is worth,'' is- another ex- 
pression for the Value of a commodity or labor. The 
Value of a commodity or labor is the degree of ben- 
efit which it confers upon the person loho receives it, 
or to whose use it is applied. The Cost of it is, on 
the other hand, as already explained, the degree of 
burden which the production of the commodity or the 
performance of the labor imposed upon the person 
who produced or performed it. They are therefore 
by no means the same. No two things can possibly be 
more distinct. The burden or cost may be very great 
and the benefit or value very little or vice versa. In 
the case of an exchange or transfer of an article from 
one person to another, the Cost relates to the party 
who makes the transfer, the burden of the production 
falling on him, and the Value to the party to whom the 
transfer is made, the article going to his benefit. It is 
the same if the object exchanged is labor directly. It 
follows, therefore, that to say that, " a thing should 
bring what it worth," which is the same as to say that 
its price should he measured by its value, is quite the 
opposite of affirming that it should bring as much as it 
cost the producer to produce it. Hence, both rules 
cannot be true, for they conflict with and destroy each 
other. But we have already seen that it is exactly 
equitable that Cost be adopted as the universal limit 
of prico, in other vfords, that as much burden shall be 
assumed by each party to the exchange as is imposed 
upon the opposite party. Consequently the accepted 
axiom of trade, that " a thing should bring what it is 



106 COST THE LIMIT OF PRICE. 

worth," proves, wlien tested by simply balancing the 
scales of Equity, to be not only erroneous, but, so to 
speak, tlie antipodes of the true principle. Such is the 
result when we recur to fundamental investigation. It 
will be rendered equally obvious in the sequel, by a 
comparison of the consequences of the two principles in 
operation, that Cost is the true and Value the false 
measure of price. 

132. But although Value is not the legitimate limit 
of Price nor even an element in the price, it is, never- 
theless, an element in the bargain. It is the Value of 
the thing to he acquired lohich determines the pur- 
chaser to purchase. It belongs to the man who labors 
or produces an article, estimating for himself, as we 
have seen, the amount of burden he has assumed, to 
fix the price, measured by that burden or Cost. He 
alone knows it, and he alone, therefore, can determine 
it. It belongs, on the other hand, to the purchaser to 
estimate for himself the Value of the labor or commodity 
to him . He alone can do so in fact, for he alone knows 
the nature of his own v/ants. By the settlement of the 
first point — the Cost to the producer — the Price be- 
comes a fixed sum. If the Value then exceeds that 
sum in the estimation of the other party he will pur- 
chase, otherwise not. Hence the Value, though not 
an element in the Price, is an element in the bargain. 
The Price is a consideration wholly for the vender, and 
the Value a consideration wholly for the purchaser. 

133. As this is also a point of great importance let us 
state it again. If jou require and desire to obtain one 
hour or one year of my services, or the results of those 
services in commodities, which is the same thing — it is a 



VALUE DISTINGUISHED FKOM COST. lOT 

matter wliich does not concern me — it is impertinence 
on my part to concern m3^self with the question of the 
degree of benefit you will derive from such services. 
That is purely a question for your own consideration, 
and determines you whether you can afford to give me 
the equitable price of my labor — whether the value to 
you equals the cost to me — that is, it determines the 
demand. Your estimate of that value or benefit to 
you may be based on considerations obvious to others, 
or upon a mere whim or caprice to the gratification of 
which others would attach no importance. But it be- 
longs to the Sovereignty of the Individual to gratify 
even one's whims or caprices without hindrance or in- 
terference from others, at his own cost, which is, when 
the services of others are required to that end, hy pay- 
ing to them the cost to them of such services. 

134. On the other hand, it is equally an imperti- 
nence for y,ou, in the case supposed, to attempt to set- 
tle for me the degree of attraction or repugnance which 
there is to me in the performance of the services which 
3^ou require. No one else but myself can possibly 
know that. No one else can therefore fix a just price 
upon my labor. Hence it foUov^'s that both value and 
cost enter into a bargain, even when legitimately made. 
But value goes solely to determine the demand, and is 
solely cognizable by the purchaser or consumer — by 
him who receives, while cost (or burden) goes to deter- 
mine the price, and is solely cognizable by the seller or 
producer, hy him who renders. By this means the 
cost of each one's acts is made to fall on himself, which 
is the essential condition to the rightful exercise of the 
Sovereignty of the Individual. If you over-estimate 



108 COST THE LIIvIIT OF PRICE. 

the value to you of my services, you endure the cost or 
disagreeable consequences of your mistake or want of 
judgment. If I, on the other hand, under-estimate 
the cost or endurance of the perform.ance to me, the 
cost of that error falls on me, submitting each of us to 
the government of consequences, the only legitimate 
corrective. If, again, I over-estimate the cost to me 
and ask a price greater than your estimate of the value 
to you, there is no bargain, and I have lost the oppor- 
tunity of earning a price measured by the real cost of 
the performance, so that the cost of my mistake falls 
again on me; while — the market being open, and a 
thorough adjustment of supply to demand being estab- 
lished — others will make a juster estimate, whose ser- 
vices you will procure, and you will suffer no inconve- 
nience. Competition will regulate any disposition on my 
part to overcharge. (160.) 

135. All this is reversed in our existing commerce. 
The vender adjusts his price to what he supposes to 
be its value to the purchaser, that is to the degree of 
want in which the purchaser is found — never to what 
the commodity cost himself; thus interfering with 
what cannot concern him, except as a means of taking 
an undue advantage. The purchaser, on the other 
hand, offers a price based upon his knowledge or sur- 
mise of what the degree of want of the vender may 
force him to consent to take. Hence the cannibalism 
of trade. 

136. But it is objected that in the case supposed 
above, while nominally adjusting my price to the de- 
gree of repugnance to myself, I may in fact take into 
account the degree of your want, and charge you as 



VALUE DISTINGUISHED FROM COST. 109 

much as I tliink you will endure. This objection oth- 
erwise stated is simply this ; that the Individual, in 
the exercise of his sovereign freedom, may abandon 
the Cost Principle, or, in other words, the true princi- 
ple, and return to the value or false principle. That 
is, in other words, again, simply to affirm that there is 
nothing in the true principle to force the Individual to 
comply with it, to the extent of depriving him of his 
freedom to do otherwise. This is granted. Any such 
compulsion would infringe upon the principle of the 
Sovereignty of the Individual, which is, if possible, 
still more important than tlie Cost Principle itself. 
Once for all let it be distinctly understood that the 
principles of Equitable Commerce do not serve directly 
and mainly to coerce men into true or harmonic rela- 
tions when destitute of the desire for such relations. 
Their first office is, on the other hand, to inform those 
who do desire such relations, how they may be attained. 
If it is assumed that there are no such persons, then, 
certainly, the supply of true principles, of any sort, is 
a supply without a demand — but not otherwise. 

137. The secondary or indirect effect of true com- 
mercial principles in operation, will be, however, cor- 
rectional, and in one sense coercive, but coercive in a 
sense entirely compatible with freedom. It will be to 
throw the consequences of each one's deviation from 
right practice upon himself, leaving him free to exer- 
cise his own Sovereignty, but free to do so, as he ought, 
at his own cost, while they will surround him with a 
public sentiment in favor of honesty more potent than 
laws, at the same time that they will remove the temp- 
tations now existing to infringe the rights of others. 
10 



110 • COST THE LIMIT OF PRICE, 

It will be seen at another point that competition, wMcli 
is now the tyrant that forces men to be dishonest, will, 
under these principles, operate with equal power to 
induce them to be honest. (160, 206.) 

138. An illustration of the entire disconnection 
between Price and the Value to the purchaser is found 
in the one price store, in existing commerce. Upon 
this plan of trade the prices are fixed by the merchant- 
vender of the goods, and each article is labeled at a 
fixed and invariable amount. The customer has noth- 
ing whatever to do with fixing those prices. On the 
other hand it is the purchaser alone who determines 
whether the Value of an article to him is sufiicient to 
induce him to purchase at the price fixed. In these 
particulars the operation is the same as that of Equi- 
table Commerce. It differs, however, in the essential 
particular that the merchant, in fixing his prices, is gov- 
erned by no scientific principle. The prices are not 
adjusted by any equitable standard. They rest upon 
an uncertain and fluctuating basis, partly Cost, partly 
the necessities or cupidity of the vender, and partly 
the supply and demand or the supposed Value to the 
purchaser. Value is thus made actually an element 
of the price in a general way though not in the partic- 
ular case. The vender refuses to vary his price ac- 
cording to the particular Value to the particular pur- 
chaser, but he has previously taken into the account 
the general Value to purchasers at large. The case is 
only good, therefore, to illustrate the single point for 
which it was adduced, namely, the separability of 
Price and Value to the purchaser — the fact that they 
are not necessarily commingled with each other. The 



VALUE DISTINGUISHED FROM COST. Ill 

ticket at the tlieatre, tlie public lecture, the railroad, 
etc., furnishes another illustration of the same fact. 
The price is invariable, and the purchaser is left to 
determine for himself whether the Value equals the 
Cost ; if so in his opinion, there is a bargain, other- 
wise not. 

139. As respects the propriety of measuring Price by 
Value, in the first place, it is essentially impossible to 
measure Value exactly, or^ in other words, to as- 
certain the precise worth of labor or commodities. 

Cost is a thing which looks to the past, and is there- 
fore certain. Value is a thing which looks to the 
future, and is therefore contingent and uncertain. A 
bushel of potatoes lies before us. It is possible to 
estimate with accuracy how much human labor it ordi- 
narily takes to produce that amount of that article, and 
how disagreeable the labor is as compared with other 
kinds, and then we have the standard cost of the arti- 
cle ; but who will undertake to say what the value of 
that bushel of potatoes is as it stands in the market 1 
Value, remember, is the degree of benefit it will confer 
upon the person or persons who are to consume it. 
That value, it is obvious, will vary with every one of 
the 50,000 persons in the city who may chance to pur- 
chase it, and will vary with the extremes of saving 
twenty human lives (as it may do on ship-board, for 
example), and nothing at all, for the potatoes may 
stock a larder already overstocked, and be permitted to 
decay, appropriated to no beneficial purpose what- 
soever. As every one of the twenty starving persons 
would gladly have given at least $10,000 for his share 
of the potatoes rather than not have had them, the 



112 COST THE LIMIT OF PRICE. 

value of the busliel of potatoes is any tiling between 
cipher and $200,000, 

Take a more complicated case. It is possible to 
calculate how much it costs, down to the fraction of a 
cent (or, more properly, of an hour's labor), to convey a 
man from New York to Albany on a iirst-class steam- 
boat, the Isaac Newton or the Hendrick Hudson for 
example — taking into account the cost of construction, 
the cost of running, the number of persons regularly 
traveling, am-ong whom the expense is to be divided, etc. 
But who will undertake to calculate the different values 
of a trip up the Hudson to the eight hundred or a 
thousand persons who gather at the wharf at the de- 
parture of one of those magnificent boats ? One is neg- 
lecting his business at home and going on a speculation 
in which he v/ill lose a thousand dollars. How much 
is the trip worth to him ? There is a bridegroom and 
bride going off to enjoy the honey-moon. How much 
in hard money is the trip w^orth to them ? There 
stands a poor invalid who hopes to recover a little 
health by the cool breezes on the quiet river. There 
is a young man fresh from school, just starting out to 
see the world and gratify his curiosity. There is a 
sharper who will cheat somebody out of a few hundreds 
before he gets back, and so on. What is the Value to 
each of these of a trip up the Hudson 1 Value is the 
benefit to be done to each. How big is a piece of 
chalk? How much is considerable'? How far is a 
good ways ? And yet, all the political economy, all the 
calculations of finance, all the banking, all the trading 
and commercial transactions in the world, are based 
upon the idea of the measurement and comparison of 



VALUE DISTINGUISHED FROM COST. 113 

Values, Even Mr. Kellogg, Mr. Gray, and others 
who write as financial reformers, and whose labors in 
demonstrating the oppressive operation of interest or 
rent on money are invaluable, fall into the same error. 
Mr. Kellogg has a chapter " On the Power of 
Money to Measure Value," and asserts without ques- 
tion that this is one of the legitimate functions of a 
circulating medium. 

140. It is possible, it is true, for parties to form an 
estimate of relative values, based upon their' present 
knowledge of all future contingencies, and thus to pre- 
fer one thing to another in a certain ratio ; but the 
very next event which occurs may show the calculation 
of chances to have been entirely fallacious, and the real 
value of the object, on the one hand or the other, to 
be entirely different from what was anticipated. 
Hence, every exchange, based upon the comparison of 
values, is a speculation upon the probabilities of the 
future, and not a scientific measurement of that which 
already exists. All trade under the existing system is 
therefore speculation, in kind, the uncertainty differing 
in degree, and all speculation is gambling, or the stak- 
ing of risks against risks. The instrument of measure- 
ment is equally defective, as has been already shown 
in discussing the nature of money. (T7, 125.) 

141. In the next place, if it ivere possible to meas- 
ure Values precisely, the exchange of cowmiodities 
according to Value loould still be a system of mutual 
conquest and oppression — not a beneficent reciproca- 
tion of equivalents. This will appear by one or two 
simple illustrations. 

142. I.— -Suppose I am a wheelwright in a small 



114 COZT THE LIMIT OF PRICE. 

village, and the only one of my trade. You are travel- 
ing with certain valuables in your carriage, which 
breaks down opposite my shop. It will take an hour 
of my time to mend the carriage. You can get no 
other means of conveyance, and the loss to you, if you 
fail to arrive at the neighboring town in season for the 
sailing of a certain vessel, will be $500, which fact 
you mention to me, in good faith, in order to quicken 
my exertions. I give one hour of my work and mend 
the carriage. What am I in equity entitled to charge 
— what should be the limit of price upon my labor? 

Let us apply the different measures and see how 
they will operate. If Value is the limit of price, then 
the price of the hour's labor should be $500. That is 
the equivalent of the value of the labor to you. If 
cost is the limit of price, then you should pay me a 
commodity, or commodities, or a representative in cur- 
rency which will procure me commodities having in 
them one hour's labor, equally as hard as the mending 
of. the carriage, without the slightest reference to the 
degree of benefit which that labor has bestowed on you, 
or, putting the illustration in money, thus ; assuming 
the twenty-five cents to be an equivalent for an hour's 
labor of an artizan in that particular trade, then ac- 
cording to the Cost Principle I should be justified in 
asking only twenty-five cents, but according to the 
Value Principle I should be justified in asking $500. 

143. The Value Principle , in some form of ex- 
pression is, as I have said, the only recognized prin- 
ciple of trade throughout the world. " A thing is 
worth what it will bring in the market." Still if I 
TV'ere to charge you $500, or a fourth part of that sum^ 



VALUE DISTINGUISHED FROM COST. 115 

and, taking advantage of your necessities, force you to 
pay it, every body would denounce me, the poor wheel- 
wright, as an extortioner and a scoundrel. Why? 
Simply because this is an unusual application of the 
principle. Wheelwrights seldom have a chance to 
make such a " speculation," and therefore it is not ac- 
cording to the " established usages of trade." Hence 
its manifest injustice shocks, in such a case, tho com- 
mon sense of right. Meanwhile you, a wealthy mer- 
chant, are daily rolling up an enormous fortune by do- 
ing business upon the same principle which you con- 
demn in the wheelwright, and nobody finds fault. At 
every scarcity in the market you immediately raise the 
price of every article you hold. It is your business to 
take advantage of the necessities of those with whom 
you deal, by selling to them according to the Value to 
them, and not according to the Cost to you. You go 
further. You, by every means in j^our power, create 
those necessities, by buying up particular articles and 
holding them out of the market until the demand be- 
comes pressing, by circulating false reports of short 
crops, and by other similar tricks known to the trade. 
This is the same in principle as if the wheelwright had 
first dug the rut in which your carriage upset and then 
charged you the $500. 

Yet hitherto no one has thought of seriously ques- 
tioning the principle, namely, that " Value is the limit 
of Price^' or, in other words, that it is right to take 
for a thing what it is worth. It is upon this princi- 
ple or maxim that all honorable trade professes now to 
be conducted, until instances arise in which its oppress- 
ive operation is so glaring and repugnant to the moral 



116 COST THE LIMIT OF PRICE. 

sense of manldnd, that tliose wlio carry it out are de- 
nounced' as rogues and cheats. In this manner a sort 
of conventional limit is placed upon the application of 
a principle which is equally the principle of every 
swindling transaction, and of what is called legitimate 
commerce. The discovery has not hitherto been made 
that the principle itself is essentially vicious, and that 
in its infinite and all-pervadisg variety of applications, 
this vicious principle is the source of the injustice, 
inequality of condition, and frightful pauperism and 
wretchedness which characterize the existing state of 
our so-called civilisation. Still less has the discovery 
been made that there is another simple principle of 
traffic which, once understood and applied in practice, 
will effectually rectify all those monstrous evils, and 
introduce into human society the reign of. absolute 
equity in all property relations, while it will lay the 
foundations of universal harmony in the social and 
moral relations as well. 

144. 11. — Suppose it costs me ten minutes' labor to 
concoct a pill which will save your life when nothing 
else will ; and suppose, at the same time, to render 
the case simple, that the knowledge of the ingredients 
came to me by accident, without labor or cost. It is 
clear that your life is worth to- you m_ore than your for- 
tune. Am I, then, entitled to demand of you for the 
nostrum the whole of your property, more or less 1 
Clearly so, if it is right to take for a thing what it 
is worthy which is theoretically the highest ethics of 
trade. 

145. Forced, on the one hand, by the impossibility, 
existing in the nature of things, of ascertaining and 



VALUE DISTINGUISHED FROM COST« 117 

measuring positive values, or of determining, in other 
words, what a thing is really worth, and rendered par- 
tially conscious by the- obvious hardship and injustice 
of every unusual or extreme application of the princi- 
ple that it is either no rule or a bad one, and not 
guided by the knowledge of any true principle out of 
the labyrinth of conflicting rights into which the false 
principle conducts, the world has practically aban- 
doned the attempt to combine Equity with Commerce, 
and lowered its standard of morality to the inverse 
statement of the formula, namely, that, " A thing is 
iDorth ivhat it will bring ;^^ or, in other words, that it 
is fitting and proper to take for a thing when sold 
whatever can be got for it. This, then, is what is de- 
nominated the Market Value of an article, as distin- 
guished from its actual value. Without being more 
equitable as a measure of price, it certainly has a great 
practical advantage over the more decent theoretical 
statement, in the fact that it is possible to ascertain by 
experiment how much you can force people, through 
their necessities, to give. The principle, in this form, 
measures the price by the degree of want on the part 
of the purchaser, that is, by what he supposes will 
prove to be the value or benefit to him of the commo- 
dity purchased, in comparison with that of the one with 
which he parts in the transaction. Hence it becomes 
immediately a,nd continually the interest of the seller 
to place the purchaser in a condition of as much want 
as possible, " to corner" him, as the phrase is in Wall- 
street, and force him to buy at the dearest rate. If 
he is unable to increase his actual necessity, he resorts 
to every means of creating an imaginary want by false 



118 COST THE LIMIT OF PRICE. ' 

praises bestowed upon the qualities and uses of his 
goods. Hence the usages of forestalling the market, 
of confusing the public knowledge of Supply and De- 
mand, of advertising and puffing worthless commodi- 
ties, and the like, which constitute the existing com- 
mercial system — a system which, in our age, is ripen- 
ing into putrefaction, and coming to offend the nostrils 
of good taste no less than the innate sense of right, 
which, dreadfully vitiating as it is, it has failed wholly 
to extinguish. 

146. The Value Principle in this form, as in the 
other, is therefore felt^ without being distinctly under- 
stood, to be essentially diabolical, and hence it under- 
goes again a kind of sentimental modification wherever 
the sentiment for honesty is most potent. This last 
and highest expression of the doctrine of honesty, as 
now known in the world, may be stated in the form of 
the hostatory precept, " Don't be too bad," or, " Don't 
gouge too deep." No Political Economist, Financier, 
Moralist, or Religionist, has any more definite stand- 
ard of right in commercial transactions than that. It 
is not too much to affirm that neither Political Econo- 
mist, Financier, Moralist, nor Religionist knows at 
this day, nor ever has known what it is to be honest. 
The religious teacher, who exhorts his hearers from 
Sabbath to Sabbath to be fair in their dealing^ with 
each other and with the outside world, does not know, 
and could not for his life tell, how^ much he is, in fair 
dealing or equity, bound to pay his washerwoman or 
his housekeeper for any service whatever which they 
may render. The sentiment of honesty exists, but the 
science of honesty is wanting. The sentiment is first 



VALUE DISTINGUISHED FROM COST. 119 

in order. The science must be an outgrowth, a conse 
quential development of the sentiment. The precepts 
of Christian Morality deal properly with that which is 
the soul of the other, leaving to intellectual investiga- 
tion the discovery of its scientific complement. 

147. It follows from what has been said, that the 
Value Principle is the commercial embodiment of the 
essential element of conquest and war — war trans- 
ferred from the battle-field to the counter — none the 
less opposed, however, to the spirit of Christian Moral- 
ity, or the sentiment of human brotherhood. In bodily 
conflict the physically strong conquer and subject the 
physically weak. In the conflict of trade the intellec- 
tually astute and powerful conquer and subject those 
who are intellectually feeble, or whose intellectual de- 
velopment is not of the precise kind to fit them for the 
conflict of wits in the matter of trade. V/ith the pro- 
gress of civilization and development we have ceased to 
think that superior physical strength gives the 7nght of 
conquest and subjugation. We have graduated, in idea, 
out of the period of physical dominion. We remain, 
however, as yet in the period of intellectual conquest 
or plunder. It has not been questioned hitherto, as a 
general proposition, that the man who has superior in- 
tellectual endowments to others, has a right resulting 
therefrom to profit thereby at the cost of others. In 
the extreme applications of the admission only is the 
conclusion ever denied. In the whole field of what are 
denominated the legitimate operations of trade, there 
is no other law recognized than the relative " smart- 
ness" or shrewdness of the parties, modified at most 
by the sentimental precept stated above. 



120 COST THE LIMIT OF PRICE. 

148. The intrinsic wrongfulness of the principal axi- 
oms and practice of existing commerce will appear to 
every reflecting mind from the preceding analysis. It 
will be proper, however, before dismissing the consid- 
eration of the Value Principle, to trace out a little 
more in detail some of its specific results. 

The principle itself being essentially iniquitous, all 
the fruits of the principle are necessarily pernicious. 

Among the consequences which flow from it are the 
following : 

149. I. — It renders falsehood and hypocrisy a ne- 
cessary concomitaiit of trade. Where the object is to 
buy cheap and sell dear, the parties find their interest 
in mutual deception. It is taught, in theory, that 
"honesty is the best policy,'^ in the long run, but in 
practice the merchant discovers speedily that he must 
starve if he acts upon the precept — in the short run. 
Honesty — even as much honesty as can be arrived at — 
is not the best policy under the present unscientific 
system of commerce; if by the best policy is meant 
that which tends to success in business. Professional 
merchants are sharp to distinguish their true policy for 
that end, and they do not find it in a full exposition of 
the truth. Intelligent merchants know the fact well, 
and conscientious merchants deplore it ; but they see 
no remedy. The theory of trade taught to innocent 
youths in the retired family, or the Sunday school, 
would ruin any clerk, if adhered to behind the counter, 
in a fortnight. Hence it is uniformly abandoned, and 
a new system of morality acquired the moment a prac- 
tical application is to be made of the instruction. A 
frank disclosure, by the merchant, of all the secret ad- 



VALUE DISTINGUISHED FROM COST. 121 

vantages in his possession, -would destroy liis reputa- 
tion for sagacity as effectually as it would that of the 
gambler among his associates. Both commerce and 
gambling, as professions, are systems of strategy. It 
is the business of both parties to a trade to overreach 
each other — a fact which finds its unblushing announce- 
ment in the maxim of the Common Law, Caveat emp- 
tor (let the purchaser take care). 

150. II. — It makes the rich richer, and the poor 
poorer. Trade being, under this system, the intellec- 
tual correspondence to the occupation of the cut- throat 
or conqueror under the reign of physical force — the' 
stronger consequently accumulating more than his 
share at the cost of the destruction of the weaker — the 
consequence of the principle is that the occupation of 
trade, for those who possess intellectual superiority, 
with other favorable conditions, enables them to accu- 
mulate more than their share of wealth, while it re- 
duces those whose intellectual development — of the pre- 
cise kind requisite for this species of contest — and 
whose material conditions are less favorable — to 
wretchedness and poverty. 

151. III. — It creates trade for trade s sake, and 
augments the number of non-producers, whose sup- 
port is chargeable upon Labor. As trade, under the 
operation of this principle, offers the temptation of illi- 
cit gains and rapid wealth at the expense of others, it 
creates trade where there is no necessity for trade — not 
as a beneficent interchange of commodities between 
producers and consumers, but as a means of specula- 
tion. Hence thousands are withdrawn from actual 
production and thrust unnecessarily into the business 

11 



122 COST THE LIMIT OF PRICE. 

of exchanging, mutually devouring each other by com- 
petition, and drawing their subsistence and their wealth 
from the producing classes, without rendering any 
equivalent service. Hence the interminable range of 
intermediates between the producer and consumer, the 
total defeat of organization and economy in the distri- 
bution of products, and the intolerable burden of the 
unproductive classes upon labor, together with a host 
of the frightful results of pauperism and crime. 

152. IV. — It degrades the dignity of Labor. In- 
asmuch as trade, under the operation of this principle, 
is more profitable, or at any rate is liable to be, prom- 
ises to be, and in a portion of cases is more profitable 
than productive labor, it follows that the road to wealth 
and social distinction lies in that direction. Hence 
" Commerce is King.'' Hence, again, productive la- 
bor is depreciated and contemned. It holds the same 
relation to commerce in this age — under the reign of 
intellectual superiority — that commerce itself held a 
few generations since — under the reign of physical 
force — -to military achievement, personal or hereditary. 
Thus the degradation of labor, and all the innumerable 
evils which follow in its train, in our existing civiliza- 
tion, find their efficient cause in this same false princi- 
ple of exchanging products. The next stage of pro- 
gress will be the inauguration of Equity — equality in 
the results of every species of industry according to 
burdens, and the consequent accession of labor to the 
highest rank of human estimation. Commerce will 
then sink to a mere brokerage, paid, like any other 
species of labor, according to its repugnance, as the 
army is now sinking to a mere police force. It will be 



VALUE DISTINGUISHED FROM COST, 123 

reduced to tlie simplest and most direct methods of 
exchange, and made to be the merest servant of pro- 
duction, which will come, in its turn, to be regarded as 
conferring the only true patents of nobility. 

153. V. — It prevents the possibility of a scientific 
Adjustment of Supply to Beinand., It has been already 
shown that speculation is the cause why there has 
never been, and cannot now be any scientific Adapta- 
tion of Supply to Demand. (35, 36.) It has also 
been partially shown, at various points, that specula- 
tion, or trading in chances and fluctuations in the mar- 
ket has its root in the Value Principle, and that the 
Cost Principle extinguishes speculation. It will be 
proper, however, in this connection to define exactly 
the limits of speculation, and to point out more specifi- 
cally how the Value Principle creates it, and how the 
Cost Principle extinguishes it, 

154. By speculation is meant, in the ordinary lan- 
guage of trade, risky and unusual enterprises entered 
upon for the sake of more than ordinary profits, and in 
that sense there is attached to it, among merchants, a 
slight shade of imputation of dishonesty or disreputa- 
ble conduct. As we are seeking now, however, to em- 
ploy language in an exact and scientific way, we must 
find a more precise definition of the term. The line 
between ordinary and more than ordinary profits is too 
vague for a scientific treatise. At one extremity of 
the long succession of chance-dealing and advantage- 
taking transactions stands gambling, which i^3 de 
nounced by the common verdict of mankind as merely 
a more specious form of robbery. It holds the same 
relation to robbery itself that duelling holds to murder. 



124 COST THE LIMIT OF PRICE. 

Where is the other end of this succession ? At what 
point does a man b^gin to take an undue advantage of 
his fellow man in a commercial transaction 1 It clearly 
appears, from all that has been shown, that he does so 
from the moment that he receives from him more than 
an exact equivalent of cost. But it is the constant 
endeavor of every trader, upon any other than the Cost 
Principle, to do that. The business of the merchant 
is profit-making. Profit signifies, etymologic ally, 
something rnade over and above, that is, something 
beyond an equivalent, or, in its simplest expression, 
something for nothing. 

155. It is clear, then, that there is no difierence be- 
tween profit-making in its mildest form, speculation in 
its opprobrious sense as the middle term, and gambling 
as the ultimate, except in degree. There is simply 
the bad gradation of rank which there is between the 
slaveholder, the driver on the slave plantation, and the 
slavedealer, or between the man of pleasure, the har- 
lot, and the pimp. 

156. The philanthropy of the age is moving heaven 
and earth to the overthrow of the institution of slavery. 
But slavery has no scientific definition. It is thought 
to consist in the feature of chattelism, but an ingeni- 
ous lawyer would run his pen through every statute 
upon slavery in existence, and expunge that fiction of 
the law, and yet leave slavery, for all practical pur- 
poses, precise^;, what it is now. It needs only to ap- 
propriate the services of the man by operation of law, 
instead of the man himself. The only distinction, then, 
left between his condition and that of the laborer who 
is robbed by the operation of a false commercial prin- 



VALUE DISTINGUISHED FROM COST. 125 

ciple, would be in the fact of the oppression being more 
tangible and undisguisedly degrading to his manhood. 

157. If, in any transaction, I get from you some 
portion of your earnings without an equivalent, I begin 
to make you my slave — to confiscate you to my uses ; 
if I get a larger portion of your services without an 
equivalent, I make you still further my slave ; and, 
finally, if I obtain the whole of your services without 
an equivalent — except the means of keeping you in 
working condition for my own sake, I make you com- 
pletely my slave. Slavery is merely one development 
of a general system of human oppression, for which we 
have no comprehensive term in English, but which the 
French Socialists denominate exploitation — the ab- 
straction, directly or indirectly, from the working 
classes of the fruits of their labor. In the case of the 
slave the instrument of that abstraction is force and 
legal enactments. In the case of the laborer, generally, 
it is speculation in the large sense, or projit-making. 
The slaveholder will be found, therefore, upon a scien- 
tific analysis, to hold the same relation to the trader 
which the freebooter holds to the blackleg. It is a 
question of taste which to admire most, the dare-devil 
boldness of the one, or the oily and intriguing propen- 
sities and performances of the other. 

158. But, you exclaim, why should I sell at cosf? 
How am I to live as a merchant without profits'? 
Never you mind. That is not the question now up. 
Perhaps the world has no particular use for you as a 
merchant. We will take care of all that by and by. 
Just now all that we are doing is to settle the nature 
of certain principles. We shall want some merchants 



126 COST THE LIMIT OF PRICE. 

after all, and will pay them just what they are equita- 
bly entitled to. Do you want morel I shall now 
be understood when I say that the Cost Principle is 
merely the mutual abandonment, on all hands, of ev- 
ery species of profit-making— eac/j contenting him- 
self with simple equivalents of cost in every ex- 
change. It will be perceived, too, that the term spec- 
ulation is used as synonymous with profit-making y 
when it is affirmed that that has hitherto defeated the 
Adaptation of Supply to Demand. With the cessation 
of profit-making there is no longer any temptation to 
conceal from each other any species of knowledge bear- 
ing upon that subject. At that point gazetteers, cata- 
logues, and statistical publications of all sorts spring 
into existence, giving exact information upon every 
point connected with the demand and supply of labor 
and commodities, and the production and distribution 
of wealth. 

159. yi. — The Value Pi^nciple renders Competi- 
tion destructive and desperate. The general subject of 
Competition will be more fully considered under an- 
other head. (202.) The consequence here stated fol- 
lows in part as a necessary result of the preceding one, 
the want of Adaptation of Supply to Demand, and in 
part from the robbery of labor by the system now in 
operation. In the existing state of things there is an 
apparent surplus of both commodities and laborers, and 
the result is that men and women who are able to work, 
and willing to work, are not able to find employment. 
Hence, to be thrown out of occupation by competition 
is a frightful calamity, always implying distress, fre- 
quently destitution and wretchedness, and sometimes 



VALUE DISTINGUISHED FROM COST. 12T 

absolute starvation, while the fear of such a catastro- 
phe is a demon which haunts continually the imagina- 
tion of the workingman;, afflicting him with a misery 
hardly less real than the occurrence of the calamity it- 
self. It is the tendency and direct effect of competi- 
tion to throw out the inferior workman from every oc- 
cupation, and to supply his place by the superior work- 
man in that particular branch of industry. This ten- 
dency, direful as its consequences are in the existing 
state of things, is nevertheless a right tendency, and 
society ought to be organized upon such principles that 
it should have full play — to an extent far beyond what 
it now has — with no other than beneficent results to 
all. It is perfectly right that the inferior workman 
should be thrown out of any employment to make- room 
for the superior workman in that employment. To re- 
tain the inferior workman in any occupation, while 
there is in the whole world a superior workman for 
that occupation, who can do the same work at less cost, 
and therefore upon the Cost Principle at a less price j 
is bad economy of means — as bad as it is to employ an 
inferior machine or process after a superior machine or 
process has been discovered — and any system or set of 
relations which works out bad results from such appro- 
priate substitution of the superior for the inferior in- 
strument must be itself essentially bad. 

160. It is now calamitous for any person to be 
thrown out of his particular occupation for several rea- 
sons, all of which either relate directly to the opera- 
tions of the Value Principle, or indirectly to it, through 
the general want of the Adaptation of Supply to De- 
mand, which is occasioned by it. 



128 COST THE LIMIT OF PRICE. 

161. The principal of tliese are : 1. Because when 
one avenue to industry is closed another is not opened, 
as would be the case if supply and demand were accu- 
rately adjusted; and hence a.pparently there is not 
enough labor for all. In the existing order, or rather 
disorder of commerce, there is what is called over-pro- 
duction. More of a given article seems to be produced 
than is wanted, which is shown by the fact that it cannot 
be disposed of in the market at any price. With all the 
irregularities of existing commerce this seldom happens. 
The evil does not generally go beyond the reduction of 
price. When it does, it is because there is now no 
provisory means of adjusting supply and demand. 
The producer cannot know beforehand, for example, 
precisely how many persons are engaged in rearing the 
particular kind of fruit which he cultivates, what num- 
ber of trees they have, the amount of fruit annually 
consumed in the city where they find their market, etc. 
But although the workings of the law of supply and 
demand are not pointed out to him beforehand, the law 
is sure to work, nevertheless. It is inflexible as the 
law of the Modes and Persians. It will punish the 
error, although it did not prevent it. The over-supply 
may happen one year, but it will not happen the second 
and the third years. The persons employed in that 
kind of production will find their way into other pur- 
suits. In a country which should prohibit all change 
of pursuits, that remedy would not exist. The evil 
would have to go on, or be remedied by the starvation 
of the producer of the given article. In America, 
where the avenues to every pursuit are more open than 
elsewhere, the remedy is more speedy than elsewhere. 



VALUE DISTINGUISHED FHOM 'COST. 129 

Under the reign of Equity, the evil would not exist, 
because there would he a pi^ovisory adjustment of the 
supply to the demand, and if it did occur, the remedy- 
would be immediate, because all avenues to all pur- 
suits would be open to all by means of that adjust- 
ment, and the general preparedness of all to change 
rapidly their pursuits, together with the general preva- 
lence of co-operation. (163.) 

Still there is, in the nature of things, and apart from 
the workings of any particular system, a limit to the 
demand for every article. When that demand is sup- 
plied must not the demand for labor cease 1 Certainly, 
for the production of more of that particular article. 
We have seen, however, that that labor will go into 
difierent avenues, that is, into the production of other 
articles. If the question is, whether all the wants of 
all mankind will not be so completely supplied that 
there will be no occasion for further labor, the answer 
is three-fold. First, so soon as the labor ceased, con- 
sumption would reproduce the wants and the demand. 
Secondly, if this were partially so, it would only give 
additional leisure for mental improvement, and other 
means of enjoyment to all mankind by emancipating 
them so far from the necessity of labor. Thirdly, the 
wants of human beings are infinite. As the lower 
wants are supplied higher wants are developed. So 
soon as men and women have ordinary food, clothing, 
and shelter, they demand luxuries, and these of a 
higher and still higher class. The gratification of 
every taste creates a new demand. It is impossible, 
therefore, that the demand for human labor, and for 
all the labor which can be given, should ever cease. 



130 COST THE LIMIT OF PSICE. 

Hence there is no such thing possible as a real over 
stocking of the world with labor, or the products of 
labor. There is no such thing possible as a real dearth 
of labor to be performed. With all the avenues con- 
tinually open, there will then always be a demand for 
all the labor that any body is ready to perform, even 
down to the inferior and lowest grades of skill. It will 
be still more clearly shown, in treating of the remain- 
ing results of the Cost Principle, how, under the true 
system, the avenues to every pursuit will be open to 
every individual at all times without artificial obsta- 
cles, and how there will be at all times labor enough 
for all. (213.) 

162. 2. Because, vjlien avenues are open to new 
pursuits, men and women are not now prepared to 
avail themselves of them. This unpreparedness re- 
sults from their wretchedly cramped and insufiicient 
industrial education. This results again from specu- 
lation. Men now strive, on all hands, to monopolize 
those occupations which are most profitable, and hence 
to exclude others from acquiring the necessary knowl- 
edge to enable them to enter them. Hence there re- 
sults from the value or profit-making principle a gene- 
ral embargo on knowledge, and the reduction of all 
classes to nari-owness of information and general igno- 
rance. Information in any trade or pursuit is made 
a means of speculation. Hence the barbarous system 
of seven-years' apprenticeships, and other similar ab- 
surdities. Hence when men and women are thrown 
out of any particular occupation to which they have 
been bred and moulded, they are fitted for nothing but 
pauperism. Under the operation of the Cost Princi- 



VALUE DISTINGUISHED FROM COST. 131 

pie all this will be reversed. Every member of tlic 
community will be a man or a woman, competent to 
do various things — not a mere appendage to a trade, 
carrying from the cradle to the grave the badge of ser- 
vitude in the degrading appellation of tailor, weaver, 
shoemaker, joiner, and the like. Now, shops are fenced 
in, locked and bolted, to keep out intruders and shut 
up the information contained in them. Trades are 
hedged in by the absurd and barbarous system based 
on Value. Men who have knowledge of any kind 
hoard it. They look, unnaturally, upon those who 
would learn of them, as if they were enemies. As the 
result, the avenues to different occupations are every- 
where obstructed by artificial obstacles. Then in- 
formation of all sorts will be freely given to all. Sug- 
gestions will be made on all hands, aiding every one to 
enter that career in which he can most benefit, not him- 
self only but the whole public. In a word, all the ave- 
nues to every occupation will be thrown completely 
open to all, and all knowledge be freely furnished to 
all at the mere cost of the labor of communicating it, 
measured, like any labor, by its repugnance only. 

163. VII. — The Value Principle renders the in- 
vention of new machinery a wide-spread calamity^ 
instead of a universal blessing. The hostility so gen- 
erally felt by laboring men to new inventions is not 
without reason. It is certainly true that machinery is 
a great benefit to mankind at large, and that in the 
aggregate and in the long run it improves the condi- 
tion even of laboring men as a class. But it is equally 
true, on the other hand, that every invention of a labor- 
saving process is, under the present arrangements of 



132 COST THE LIMIT OF PRICE. 

society, an immediate individual misfortune, and fre- 
quently nothing less than ruin and starvation to a large 
number of individuals of that class. This result comes 
from the causes stated above, which render it impossi- 
ble for the laborer to pass rapidly and harmoniously 
from one occupation to another, and from the monop- 
oly of the immediate benefits of the saving secured by 
the machine, by capital, and all these again from profit- 
making, or the operation of the Value Principle. It is 
the same with competition and machinery. Competition, 
even in the present order of things, is productive of far 
more good than evil, looking to the aggregate and the 
long run, while it is ruinous and destructive immediately 
and individually. Under the new order both will be- 
come purely harmonic and beneficent. (208, 243.) 

164. This catalogue of the deleterious results of the 
false principle of trade might and should be extended^ 
and the details' expanded beyond what the limits of this 
work will allow. The reader will add, for himself, the 
monopolizing of natural wealth, the perversion of skill 
to the shamming or adulteration of every species of 
commodity, the waste of time and exertion in detect- 
ing and defeating frauds and cheats, the general want 
of economy in the production of wealth, the cost of 
convicting and punishing criminals, constructing poor- 
houses and prisons, etc., etc., etc., ad infinitum. 

It must suffice here to affirm, that out of these seve- 
ral consequences of the operation of the Value Principle 
results that complicated system of injustice, discord, 
distrust, and repulsion which have usurped the place 
of the spirit of peace, order, and social harmony, and 
which characterizes, in the most eminent degree, in the 



VALUE DISTINGUISHED FHOM COST. 133 

midst of their success, the most commercial and pros- 
perous nations. The comparison of the present is not 
to be instituted however, mainly, with any condition of 
society prior to the commercial age, since different 
manifestations of the want of equity have characterized 
them also. The exhibition of relations of truth in hu- 
man intercourse could not precede the discovery of the 
principles according to which such relations must be 
adjusted. 

165. The operation of the Cost Principle reverses 
every one of the consequences which I have pointed 
out or intimated, as the legitimate fruits of the prin- 
ciple which now governs the property relations of man- 
kind. In the next chapter we shall return to the con- 
sideration of the results of the true principle. 
12 



134 COST THE LIMIT OF PKICE. 



CHAPTER V. 

MENIAL LABOR RAISED IN PRICE. 

166. The next result of the Cost Principle is one 
which is not less diverse from the operations of exist- 
ing conmierce or society, although its essential justice 
may to many minds be more obvious, namely, that ac- 
cording to it the more ordinary and menial kinds of 
labor will be usually paid best. This result follows 
from the fact that all pursuits are paid according to 
their repugnance, and there is less in the inferior 
grades of labor to commend them to the taste, and ren- 
der them attractive. This result is qualified by the 
statement that such labor is usually paid best, because 
it is not always so. Severe mental labor may be more 
toilsome, painful, and repugnant than any corporeal 
labor vvhatever, and consequently cost more. This 
point will be more fully stated hereafter, in referring 
to th% tax of different occupations upon different facul- 
ties. Besides, very little judgment can be formed 
from the present ideas upon the subject, as to what 
kinds of labor will be regarded, under the operation of 
true pnaciples, as inferior to, or more menial than 
others. 

16'?. It is certain that every species of industry will 
be relatively very much elevated by the mere fact of 
being appropriately rewarded, and still more so by the 



MENIAL LABOR RAISED IN PRICE. 135 

consequent prevalence of more rational notions in rela- 
tion to the dignity of labor. The principle here as- 
serted merely amounts to this, that whatever kinds of 
labor actually have in them the greatest amount of 
drudgery, from any cause, even from the whims and 
prejudices of society against them, and which are there- 
fore most repugnant, will be best paid. The contrary 
is true now. Such labors are the most scantily paid. 
Consequently the -more work or burden there is in any 
occupation, the less pay. There is such an obvious 
want of equity in this, that the mere statement of the 
fact condemns it. Yet the common associations and 
habits of thought are so completely overturned by the 
idea of boot-blacking, street-cleaning, washing, scrub- 
bing, etc., being paid higher prices than painting, sculp- 
ture, forensic oratory, and the largest commercial trans- 
actions, as they might, and probably would be, under 
the application of repugnance or cost as the measure 
of price, that the mind hesitates to admit the conclu- 
sion that such is the dictate of simple Equity. The 
principle of Equity is, nevertheless, clear and self-evi- 
dent ; and while the principle is admitted the conclu- 
sion is inevitable. 

168. The first resort of an illogical and determined 
opposition to this conclusion, is to fly off from the prin- 
ciple to the consequences of the conclusion upon the 
condition and interests of society. These, as they ad- 
dress themselves to the mind of a superficial observer, 
are repugnant, and even disastrous to the general good. 
A closer inspection, however, and especially a more 
comprehensive conception of all the changed conditions 
of society which will grow out of the operation of the 



136 COST THE LIMIT OF PHICE. 

Cost Principle, will reverso that opinion, and furnish 
an illustration of the fact that a true principle may al- 
ways be trusted to work out true and harmonious re- 
sults. The objections deduced from these supposed 
consequences, require, however, to be noticed. 

169. These objections are chiefly the following : It 
is objected, in the first place, that the effect of this 
system of remuneration would be to banish refinement, 
by placing those persons having less elevated tastes, in 
the possession of the greater wealth, and those having 
more elevated tastes, in the possession of less. 

This is substantially the same objection which is 
urged by aristocracies generally against educating and 
improving the condition of the common people. It 
makes the assumption that the whole people are not 
susceptible of refinement, which is assuming too much. 
The objection draws its force chiefly from the existing 
state of society, the prevailing great inequalities in the 
distribution of wealth, and the general degradation of 
the masses consequent thereon. The result of the 
operation of the Cost Principle, or of the reign of 
Equity, will be an immense augmentation of the ag- 
gregate of wealth, and a far greater approach to equal- 
ity in its distribution. It will be, in fact, the abolition 
of poverty, and the installation of general abundance 
and security of condition. The particular modes in 
which these results will be attained will be referred to 
under other heads. 

170. Consequently, in the state of society growing 
legitimately out of the operation of Equity, refinement, 
80 far as that depends on the possession of wealth, will 
be, so to speak, the inheritance of all, and any objec- 



MENIAL LACOR EAISED IN PRICE. 13T 

tion, to be valid, should be taken within the circle of 
the new principles — not drawn from a system of soci- 
ety quite alien to them. 

171. Various calculations, and some actual experi- 
ments, go to establish the position, that if the laborer 
enjoyed the full results of his own labor in immediate 
products or equivalents of cost, two hours of labor a 
day would be ample to supply the ordinary wants of 
the individual — that is, to bring his condition up to 
the average standard of comfort — even without the 
benefits of labor-saving machinery, or the economies of 
the large scale. With those extraordinary benefits 
the time necessary for such a result will be very much 
reduced ; if it would not seem extravagaift, I should 
say, to one half hour's labor a day — such being the 
nearest result at which calculation can arrive from 
such data as can now be obtained. The remaining 
time of the Individual would then be at his disposition 
for providing a higher grade of luxury, for mental im- 
provement and amusement, and for laying up accumu- 
lations of wealth as a provision for sickness, old age, 
the indulgence of benevolence, taste, etc. Of course^ 
all calculations of this sort must be merely approxima- 
tive. The terms used are too indefinite to render them 
more than that, even if the degree of saving, by a true 
arrangement of the production and distribution of 
wealth, could be rendered definite, comfort, luxury, 
etc., being always, in a great measure, relative to the 
individual. The estimate here stated, however, is the 
result of extensive investigations, made by different in- 
dividuals, and in different countries, and of considera- 
ble actual experiment, the particulars of which will be 



138 COST THE LIMIT OF PRICE. 

stated elsewhere, and, as an approximation, it is be- 
lieved that it is not very far from correct. The rea- 
son why this two hours of labor is now augmented to 
ten, twelve, fourteen, and even sixteen hours for those 
who labor, and even then without resulting in ordinary 
comfort, are of the same kind as those which have al- 
ready been stated why others cannot procure labor at 
all, and such as have been shown to be the legitimate 
results of the Value Principle. It is, in one word, 
because the state of society begotten of that principle, 
is, as has been affirmed, a state of latent but universal 
war, and because all war is an exhausting drain upon 
peaceful industry. The men and women who work 
have now to support, ordinarily, not one individual 
each, but many, including the wealthy and speculating 
classes, the paupers, those who are thrown temporarily 
out of labor, the armies and navies, the officials, and, 
worse than all, those whose labor is now misapplied 
and wasted through the general antagonism and con- 
flict of interests. Let any thinking person take pas- 
sage, for example, upon a steamboat, and find himself 
plied by a dozen or twenty newsboys, each urging him 
to the purchase of the same newspapers ; let him re- 
flect that all the passengers present might have been 
as well served by one boy, and that this waste of hu- 
man exertion is merely one sample out of thousands of 
a general or pervading system of the bestowment of la- 
bor to no useful purpose. 

1*72. Again, the possession of wealth is only one 
means of refinement, or rather of the true development 
of the human being. Labor in itself is just as essen- 
tial to that development as wealth. Labor without 



MENIAL LABOR RAISED IN PRICE. 139 

wealth, as its legitimate end and consequence, termin- 
ates in coarseness, vulgarity, and degradation. Wealth 
without labor, as the legitimate necessity and condition 
of its attainment, ends, on the other hand, in luxuri- 
ousness and effeminacy. The first is the condition of 
the ever-toiling and poverty-stricken masses in our ac- 
tual civilization ; the last is the hardly more fortunate 
condition of the rich. Labor is first degraded by be- 
ing deprived of its reward, and, being degraded, the 
wealthy, who are enabled by their riches to avoid it, 
are repelled, even when their tastes would incline them 
to its performance. The rich suffer, therefore, from 
ennuij gout, and dyspepsia, while the poor suffer from 
fatigue, deformity, and starvation. The refinement 
toward which wealth conduces in existing society, is 
not then genuine development. The dandy is no 
more refined, in any commendable sense of the term, 
than the boor. Wealth may coexist with inbred and 
excessive vulgarity. The fact is patent to all, but the 
proof of it could nowhere be more obvious than in the 
very objection I am answering. The absence of true 
refinement and gentility is in no manner so completely 
demonstrated as by selfish and wanton encroachments 
upon the rights of others, and no encroachment can be 
conceived more selfish and wanton than that of de- 
manding that others shall work without compensation 
to maintain our gentility. 

1T3. Refinement sits most gracefully upon those 
who have the most thorough physical development and 
training. The highest exhibit of the real gentleman 
can no more be produced without labor than that of the 
scholar without study. There is no more a royal road 



140 COST THE LIMIT OF PRICE. 

to true refinement tlian there is to mathematics. The 
experiment has been tried in either case a thousand 
times, of jumping the primary and intermediate steps, 
and the product has been in one event the fop, and in 
the other the pedant. 

Refinement is, so to speak, a luxury to be indulged 
in after the necessaries of life are provided. Those 
necessaries consist of stamina of body and mind, which 
are only wrought out of mental and corporeal ex- 
ercise. Mere refinement sought from the beginning, 
with no admixture of hardship, emasculates the man, 
and ends disastrously for the individual and the race. 
It is indispensable, therefore, to the true education 
and integral development of both the individual and 
the race, that every person shall take upon himself or 
herself a due proportion of the common burden of man- 
kind. If it were possible for any one individual to la- 
bor, for his whole life, at pursuits which were purely 
attractive and delightful, it is questionable whether 
even that would not mollify his character to the point 
of effeminacy — whether absolute difiiculties and repug- 
nances to be overcome are not essential to a right edu- 
cation of a human being in 'every condition of his exist- 
ence. The Cost Principle forces a compliance with 
what philosophy thus demonstrates to be the unavoida- 
ble condition of human development and genuine refine- 
ment. It removes the possibility of one person's living 
in indolence off the exertions of others. It administers 
labor as the inevitable prior condition of indulging in 
refinement, for which it furnishes the means and pre- 
pares the way. This objection, drawn from the con- 
sequences of the principle upon the well-being of soci- 



MENIAL LABOR EAISED IN PRICE. 141 

ety is therefore destitute of validity. The balance of 
advantage predominates immensely in the opposite 
scale. The result which the principle works out is 
the elevation and genuine refinement of the whole race, 
instead of brutifying the vast majority of mankind, and 
emasculating the rest. 

174. The second objection is, that this method of 
remuneration depresses the condition of genius, and 
aiFords no means of obtaining a livelihood, and of mak- 
ing accumulations, to those who pursue purely attrac- 
tive occupations. (99.) 

This objection is, in part, answered in the same 
manner as the preceding. Genius, as well as refine- 
ment, has its basis in healthful physical conditions, 
such as result from a due amount of labor and strug- 
gle with mental and corporeal difficulties. Complete 
relief from all necessity for exertion is by no means a 
favorable state for the development of genius, or its 
maintenance in activity. The poet who works three 
hours a day at some occupation which is actual work, 
will be a better poet than the same man, if he should 
devote himself exclusively to his favorite literary pur- 
suit. With the knowledge of physiological laws now 
prevalent, it cannot be necessary to enlarge upon a 
statement so well authenticated, both by science and 
experience. Less than that amount of labor, in true 
industrial relations, will furnish the means of existence 
and comfort. Hence, under the operation of these 
principles, genius has its own destiny in its own hands. 

175. The man of genius who should devote himself 
exclusively, except so far as he must labor to provide 
himself the means of living, to that which to him was 



142 COOT THE LIMIT OF PRICE. 

purely attractive and deliglitful, would of course not 
accumulate, as the price of his exertions, that kind of 
reward which appropriately belongs to exertions of a 
diiFerent kind, namely, to such as tend directly to the 
production of wealth. If he seeks his own gratifica- 
tion solely in this pursuit, he finds his reward in the 
pursuit itself. Probably, however, there is no species 
of occupation which, when continuously followed, is 
purely delightful. If the artist disposes of the pro- 
ducts of his genius at all, he is entitled to demand a 
price for them according to the degree of cost or sacri- 
fice they have occasioned him — less in proportion to 
the degree to which he has pursued the occupation 
from pure delight. The correctness of this principle 
is now tacitly admitted in the case of the amateur, who 
does not charge for his works, because he performed 
them for his own gratification. So soon, however, as 
the artist, in any department of art, becomes profes- 
sional, and exercises his profession for the pleasure 
and gratification of the public, he is forced to subor- 
dinate his own gratification, more or less, to that of 
those whom he attempts to propitiate, which, with the 
temperament usually belonging to that class of per- 
sons, is extremely irksome. In proportion to this irk- 
someness comes an augmentation of price. To be 
obliged to perform at stated times, to conform his own 
tastes to the demands of his employers or patrons, and 
the like^ — all the sacrifice thus imposed enters legiti- 
mately into the estimate of price. It may be, there- 
fore, that art pursued as a profession, may be as lu- 
crative, in a mere commercial point of view, as any 
other pursuit. 



MENIAL LABOR RAISED IN PRICE. 143 

176. Ordinarily, however, there is a repugnance 
with the genuine artist to pursuing art as a profession 
at all. He desires ardently to pay his devotions at 
the shrine of his favorite divinity solely for her own 
sake. He feels that there is something liker degrada- 
tion in intermingling with his worship any mercenary 
motive whatever. For the gratification of this refined 
sentiment, how superior would his condition be, if, by 
expending a few hours of his time at some productive 
industry, which the arrangements of society placed al- 
ways at his disposal, he could procure an assured s^ib- 
sistence, and that grade of comfort and elegance to 
which his tastes might incline him. There can be 
nothing in the vagrant and precarious condition of the 
devotees of art, in our existing society, to be viewed as 
a model, which it would be dangerous to deviate from, 

177. The objection which we are now considering 
has been, however, already answered in a manner more 
satisfactory, perhaps, to those whose aspirations for 
the artist are more luxurious, in the chapter on Natu- 
ral Wealth, under which head talent, natural skill, or 
genius is included. (87.) It was there shown that 
the subject treated of in this whole work is merely 
price, in its rigid sense as a remuneration for burden 
assumed, the only remuneration which the performer 
of any labor can with propriety demand ; but it is not 
for that reason the 'only remuneration which he may 
with propriety receive, if more is rendered as a free 
tribute for pleasure conferred, of which the party 
served must be the sole judge. (93.) Hence, as the 
business of the artist and the genius is to confer the 
purer and more elevated kinds of pleasure, the whole 



144 COST THE LIMIT OF PRICE. 

field is open to him to compel by pure attraction as 
liberal a tribute as lie may, provided always no other 
force is employed. The point of honor would concur 
with equity in limiting him in his demand to the mere 
amount ^of burden assumed, as if he were the most me- 
nial laborer, an amount which delicacy and politeness 
toward those whom he served would lead him rather 
to under than over estimate. On the other hand, the 
same point of honor would leave to them the estimate 
of the pleasure conferred, while delicacy and politeness 
on their part would in turn prompt them to magnify 
rather than diminish the obligation, and bespeak from 
them an appreciative and indulgent spirit. In this 
manner the intercourse of the artist, the genius, the 
discoverer, or other supereminent public benefactor 
with the 'public would be raised to a natural and re- 
fined interchange of courtesies, instead of a disgraceful 
scramble about priority of rights, or the price of tickets. 

1T8. In like manner there is nothing in the Cost 
Principle to prevent the most liberal contributions, on 
all hands, tov>^ard aiding inventors in carrying on their 
experiments before success has crowned their exer- 
tions, and the most liberal testimonials of the public 
appreciation of those exertions after success is achieved. 

179. The third objection to the Cost Principle, 
drawn from its consequences upon the interests and 
conditions of society, is that it does not provide for the 
performance of every useful function in the commu- 
nity. More specifically stated the objection is this : 
Labor is paid according to its repugnance ; there are 
some kinds of labor which are not repugnant at all, but 
which, on the other hand, are purely pleasurable, and 



MENIAL LABOR HAISED IN PRICE. 145 

whicli consequently would bear no price, or receive no 
remuneration ; but the performance of these kinds of 
labor is necessary to the well-being of society, and in 
order that they be performed, those who perform them 
must be sustained ; consequently they must have a price 
for their labor. The Cost Principle denies a price, 
therefore, at the same time that the well-being of soci*- 
ety demands one. 

180. This objection assumes that the labor in ques- 
tion will not be performed unless it bears a price, while 
it assumes at the same time that it is a pure pleasure 
to perform it. It assigns as the reason why it will 
not be performed, that the laborers performing it must 
be maintained while engaged in its performance. To 
assume this is in effect to assume that in the state of 
society which will result from these principles, people 
will not have leisure to pursue their pleasure for pleas- 
ure's sake, and that they will be obliged to devote the 
whole of their time to occupations going toward fur- 
nishing them the means of subsistence. This is again 
assuming too much. Such assumptions are based upon 
the existing state of things, and not upon any such as 
could exist under the reign of Universal Equity. The 
very end and purpose of all radical social reform is a 
state of society which shall relieve every individual 
from subjugation to the necessity of continuous and 
repugnant labor, and furnish him the leisure and abil- 
ity to pursue his own pleasurable occupations at his 
own option. It is claimed for the Cost Principle that, 
taken in conjunction with the doctrine of Individuality 
and the Sovereignty of the Individual, it works out a 
state of society in which that leisure and ability would 
13 



146 COST THE LIMIT OF PRICE. 

exist. The real question, then, is whether it does so 
or not. If it does, then the objection falls. It is an- 
swered by the statements that all purely pleasurable 
occupations will be filled by such persons as have leis- 
ure, or by all persons at such times as they have leis- 
ure. Being pleasurable they require no inducement in 
the form of price. Whether the operation of the Cost 
Principle is adequate to the production of general 
wealth, and the consequent prevalence of leisure and 
freedom of choice in regard to occupation, depends 
upon the correctness of the whole train of propositions 
which have been, and which are to be made upon the 
subject, 

181. The next objection drawn from the operation 
of the Cost Principle is, that it makes no provision for 
the maintenance of the poor and the unfortunate — that , 
although it secures exact justice, it has in it no provi- 
sions for benevolence. 

It has been shown that in order that benevolence be 
rightly appreciated and accepted as such, and beget 
benevolence in turn, it is essential that equity should 
first have been done. Mutual benevolence can only 
exist after all the requirements of equity have been 
complied with, and that can only be by first know- 
ing what the requirements of equity really are ; where, 
in other words, the relations of equity or justice cease, 
and those of benevolence begin. 

182. It is the essential element of benevolence that 
it be perfectly voluntary. If it is exercised in obedi- 
ence to a demand it is no longer benevolence. Apply 
these principles to the question of public or private 
charity. If justice were done to all classes and all in- 



MENIAL LABOR E.AISED IN PRICE. 14T 

dividuals in society, if^ in other words, the whole pro- 
ducts of the labor of each were secured to him for his 
own enjoyment, the occasion for charity, as it is now 
administered, would be almost wholly removed. Pau- 
perism, in any broad sense, would be extinguished. 
Poverty would, so to speak, be abolished, except in the 
very rare instances of absolute disability, from disease 
or accident overtaking persons for whom no prior pro- 
vision had been made either by their own accumula- 
tions or those of their ancestors or deceased friends. 
Pauperism, with such rare exceptions, is purely the 
growth of the existing system of commercial exchanges, 
tending continually, as has been shown, to make the 
rich richer, and the poor poorer. 

183. With regard, then, to the few cases of disa- 
bility, coupled with destitution, which may always con- 
tinue to occur, it is obvious that that principle of sci- 
ence which intervenes to regulate the equitable ex- 
change of products has no application whatever where 
there are no products to exchange. Equity is then 
out of the question. Equivalents cannot be rendered 
because there is nothing on the one side to render. 
Benevolence comes then fairly in play. In the same 
manner as the sentiment of justice is offended by the 
pretence of giving as charity what is felt to be due as 
a right, so, on the other hand, the sentiment of benevo- 
lence is offended by a claim as a matter of right to 
that Vv^hich should be voluntarily bestowed, if at all. 
I have .observed elsewhere that Rowland Hill would 
never have received the magnificent testim-onial be- 
stowed upon him by the English people, if he had seen 
fit to prefer a claim to it as the price of his services. 



148 COST THE LIMIT OF PRICE. 

Benevolence is conciliated, therefore, the moment that 
all claim is abandoned, and claims having no basis in 
right are abandoned immediately whenever there is an 
exact knowledge of the limits of equity. In this man- 
ner the Cost Principle, while it does not profess to be 
benevolent, serves, nevertheless, as an inspirer and 
regulator of benevolence itself. While justice is not 
benevolence, therefore, the foundations of benevolence 
are still laid in justice. 

184. In a condition of society, then, in which Equity 
shall first have been secured to all, benevolence, when- 
ever the occasion shall arise, will flow forth from every 
heart with unmeasured abundance. The disabled and 
unfortunate will be the pets and spoiled children of the 
community. It is a mistake in the philosophy of mind 
to suppose that there is naturally any sense of degrada- 
tion from being the object of real charity. There 
never is any repugnance on the part of any one to be- 
ing the recipient of genuine benevolence. The tenant 
of the poorhouse in our pauper-ridden civilization is 
degraded, and made sensible of his degradation by the 
malevolence, never by the benevolent sentiment of so- 
ciety toward him. He is first hated because injustice 
has been done him, and then hated because he is a 
burden to society. 

185. This is the true solution of the question of 
charity. So long as persons exist who are unable to 
support themselves from the products of their own la- 
bor, they must be maintained by the labor of other 
persons, without rendering any equivalent, and to be 
so maintained is to depend upon charity. There is no 
escaping from this necessity. Partnership or associ- 



MENIAL LABOR RAISED IN PRICE. 149 

ative arrangements, or the theory of Communism may 
disguise the fact, but the fact continues to exist, never- 
theless. The remedy for the disagreeable features of 
charity is not to be sought by the impossible means 
of removing the fact, but by improving the general 
condition of society to the point where the demands for 
charity shall be so rare, and the general abundance of 
means so great, that there will be strife for the enjoy- 
ment of opportunities to gratify the benevolent senti- 
ment. The relation of donor and beneficiary will then 
be alike agreeable and honorable to both. There is 
nothing, however, in the Cost Principle to prevent, but 
every thing to encourage and require the extension of 
the principle of insurance to every thing to which it is 
applicable. Rhk enters into cost, and the calcula- 
tions of risk,, as in the case of tables of longevity 
and the like, reduce that element to measurement, and 
render it as easy of calculation as any other element. 
Hence, parties who earn a surplus at any period of 
their lives, can always insure permanent provision for 
the future. With reference to the very small number 
of those who, from the causes mentioned, may never 
be able to do that, the observations made above hold 
good. They must be the objects of the benevolent 
regards of the community, and not rely upon any law 
regulating equivalents of which they have none to give. 
Benevolence being purely voluntary and illimitable, 
cannot be measured nor prescribed for. Any attempt 
to organize it, or dictate its action is, therefore, as 
much out of place as it would be to regulate politeness 
by legislation. First do justice and extinguish the 
pauperism, crime, and disease which grow out of rela- 



150 COST THE LIMIT OF PRICE. 

tions of injustice, and cease to fear that the spontane- 
ous benevolence of humanity will not be amply ade- 
quate to provide for the sparsedly scattered instances 
of misfortune which may ever remain as an incentive 
to the healthy action of that affection. 

186. There is a subtle objection sometimes urged 
against the whole doctrine of attractive industry, or, in 
other words, against the propriety of every individual 
being employed in that way in which his tastes incline 
him to act, and for which his natural gifts particularly 
qualify him. It is said that genius or superior natural 
endowment in any direction, is always, in some sense, 
a diseased or abnormal condition of the man — that the 
true type of humanity is the exact equilibrium of all 
the faculties, and a consequent equal capacity for every 
species of performance — that the exercise of any fac- 
ulty augments its power, and hence that, if those fac- 
ulties which are in excess are chiefly exercised, the 
deflection from the true direction of integral individ- 
ual development is continually rendered greater and 
greater. Hence the curious result, in reasoning, is 
arrived at, that every individual should be constantly 
or chiefly engaged at those occupations for which he 
has least natural endowment, and which are least 
agreeable, or, in other words, the most repugnant to 
him. 

18T. This is an extreme and erroneous presentation 
of a principle of psychology and physiology ; but hav- 
ing a coloring of truth, it requires to be carefully con- 
sidered and distinguished. The assumption here made 
is, that there is one given standard of perfection for 
universal manhood, which is the exact equilibrium of 



MENIAL LABOR RAISED IN PRICE. 151 

all the faculties. It is obvious tliat, according to this 
theory, the perfection of the race would be the reduQ- 
tion of all men to the common standard, until every 
individual would be merely the monotonous repetition 
of every other. It is not so clear, under this hypothe- 
sis, why the Almighty should not have created one big 
man instead of so many little ones. Since economy 
of means is one of His striking characteristics, as ex- 
hibited every where in nature, the probabilities would 
certainly be in favor of such a policy. Slight reflec- 
tion, however, will show that this " Simplistic Unity" 
is no part of the scheme of creation. " Universal Va- 
riety in Unity" is the law of the universe. The theo- 
retical perfection of an exact equilibrium of faculties 
has no example in nature. It is an ideal point around 
which all individual organizations rotate in orbits more 
or less eccentric, all of them, however, when not arbi- 
trarily interfered with, unapproachably distinct from 
every other,, and hence positively incapable of collision. 
Individuality is infinite and universal. It cannot be 
extinguished, and if it could, the result would be to 
reduce the universe to zero. 

188. On the other hand it is undoubtedly true, that 
where some single faculty shows itself in any extraor- 
dinary degree of activity and power, there is a certain 
derangement of the whole system, growing out of, or 
conducing to what may be regarded as disease. Ge- 
nius verges upon insanity. Too great a departure 
from the ideal equilibrium of powers is unwholesome 
and dangerous to the physical, intellectual, and moral 
nature. Hence the arbitrary and infinitesimal divi- 
sion of labor without variety, of which our existing 



152 COST THE LIMIT OF PRICE. 

civilization boasts^ is a wretched perversion of tlie 
powers of the individual. It pnshes out and de- 
velops some one faculty to the neglect and destruc- 
tion of all others, sinking the manhood of the man 
in the skill of the artizan. Every other faculty is 
suiBfered to wither and die. The individual, instead 
of being integrally developed, is distorted. Men and 
women are sacrificed and subordinated by this means 
to Skill, as they are through Political Economy to 
Wealth, through political organizations to Govern- 
ment, and through the church to ritual observances. 
Thus Utility, Enjoyment, Social Order, and Reli- 
gion, are overlaid and smothered by the very arrange- 
ments which are instituted professedly to secure those 
ends. A person who has been forced into the per- 
formance of some one function only during life is ne- 
cessarily the helpless plaything of circum.stances. 
He is rendered wholly imbecile for all else. All the 
higher purposes of his being are defeated by an insane 
and incessant devotion to some isolated fag-end of hu- 
man affairs. 

189. Hence it follows that true development is not 
to be found in either extreme. In medio tutissimus 
ibis. That mxan may be said to be best educated who 
has a general acquaintance with the largest scope of 
subjects, coupled vath a particular and specific knowl- 
edge of some one, two, three, or more pursuits to 
■which he chiefly dedicates his labors. In the begin- 
ning of a reform movement, while the circle is small, 
the most useful men of all are those who are spoken of 
disparagingly, in existing society, as " Jacks-at-all- 
trades" — those who can turn themselves the most read- 



MENIAL LABOR RAISED IN PRICE. 153 

ily from one occupation to another. In this respect 
the American character is superior to that of all other 
people. The largest development of the Individual 
tends in that direction. With the increase of the cir- 
cle, and greater general security of condition, a more 
exclusive or one-sided class of talent will find its posi- 
tion, and a greater perfection of details — a higher com- 
posite perfection of Society — will then be achieved. 
The highest development of society demands the exist- 
ence and co-operation of both classes. The true equi- 
librium is that the versatile man shall not go to the 
extreme of having neither preferences nor excellences 
in his performance, nor the devotee to a particular 
function, to that of having no tastes or qualifications 
for any other. The point now to be observed is that 
Nature rarely, if ever, pushes things to either one or 
the other of these extremes. There is no man who is 
by nature totally indifferent as to what he will do, nor 
any so born to a single attraction that he never devel- 
ops tastes for any other, while some have greater di- 
versity, and some greater particularity of tastes, by 
natural organization. Hence, all that is necessary in 
order to secure the right distribution of functions is 
that Nature be left wholly unembarrassed — that no in- 
dividual be driven or induced by the arrangements of 
society, such as inordinate profits, disproportionate 
honors, or poverty, into, or detained in occupations 
discordant with his individual preferences or desires, 
on the one hand, and that those natural preferences or 
desires be not overstimulated by the same or a differ- 
ent class of influences, on the other. To secure that 
condition of things there ^ must be an equilibrium be- 



154 COST THE LIMIT OF PPJCE. 

tween attractions and rewards. This is precisely 
what is effected by the adoption of cost as the limit of 
price. The greater the attraction for a particular oc- 
cupation the less the price ; consequently, while it is 
placed within the power of every one to follovf his at- 
tractions so far as he may choose to do so at his own 
cost, that is, by sacrificing the larger gains of more 
repugnant industry, still, on the other hand, he is con- 
stantly appealed to by his cupidity, that is, by another 
class of wants, to compete with others in various kinds 
of labor more burdensome to him, and thereby to de- 
velop and keep in healthy exercise those faculties with 
which he is less liberally endowed by nature. 

190. Again, if any individual is imbued with the 
theory that to indulge in the exercise of his best de- 
veloped faculties is injurious to his health, moral attri- 
butes, or reasoning powers, by throwing him out of the 
ideal perfection of his nature, then that supposed in- 
jury to his nature becomes immediately, with him, an 
item of cost, raises the price of his labor in that func- 
tion, throws him out of it by the competition of others 
having similar abilities with a different appreciation of 
the wear and tear of employing them, and places him 
in the performance of something which will call into 
play those faculties which he deems deficient and 
wishes to cultivate. The principle is adequate, there- 
fore, to every emergency. But as we' have seen al- 
ready that the theory itself is only rational as a pro- 
test against an extreme use of the superior faculties, 
there is no doubt that the balance of natural attrac- 
tions will, in the great majority of cases, determine the 
general direction of industry, and the more so as the 



MENIAL LABOR RAISED IN PRICE. 155 

increased abundance of wealtli renders price a less im- 
portant consideration. The true equilibrium will tlien 
be preserved, however, by an augmented scope of at- 
tractions, which we have seen is the type of individual 
development. That the conditions of attractive in- 
dustry are supplied by the Cost Principle will be more 
fully shown in the following chapter, in which results 
will be partially sketched, which are more directly in 
harmony with the flatterilig anticipations of those re- 
formers who are most advanced, ideally. 



156 COST THE LIMIT OF PRICE. 



CHAPTEE VI. 

ATTRACTIVE INDUSTRY, CO-OPERATION, AND THE 
ECONOMIES. 

191. We have now arrived at a point from wliich 
"vye are prepared to discover and appreciate the higher 
results of the Cost Principle. The view, however, 
which I shall but slightlj^ open, of the grand and en- 
chanting prospects foreshadowed for the race by so 
simple a means as the mere enactment of justice in the 
daily transactions of man with man, will be left inten- 
tionally incomplete. The mass of mankind have but 
little toleration for Utopias. Those who are ready to 
believe in them, and who simply demand, as the basis 
of their faith, a more solid foundation than airy fan- 
cies, will trace, it is hoped, for themselves, the out- 
lines of the future, upon slight hints drawn from the 
more obvious operations of fundamental principles. 
Those who are still more credulous will feel still less 
need for elaborate demonstrations. The great mass 
of those who have some aspirations after reform have 
no ideal beyond the first stage of the results of true 
principles. Their present conception will be filled by 
relations of ju.stice, the extinction of crime, frauds, 
pauperism, and the generally discordant features of 
our existing social arrangements. They have little 
thought of the positive construction of harmonic soci- 



THE HIGHER RESULTS OF THE PRINCIPLE. 157 

ety. There is clanger that such persons would be re- 
pelled, rather than attracted, b}^ any high- wrought pic- 
tures of the future. They can best be left to work 
out a higher conception by their own intuitions and re- 
flections while laboring for the realization of what they 
now perceive. There are others, especially among the 
admirers of Robert Owen, Saint Simon, and Fourier, 
whose mental vision is accustomed to the contempla- 
tion of brilliant pictures, and who will be not unlikely 
to complain of the Science of Society, as here presented, 
on the ground that it does not begin by dealing with 
palatial structures, magnificent ornamental grounds, 
operatic performances, sculpture, and abundant luxury 
of all sorts. To those among this latter class who 
trace effects back to their causes, and causes forward 
to their effects, who can listen with pleasure to the dry 
preliminary details of rigid science, the Cost Principle 
will, on examination, become a mine rich in treasures 
of the kind they are seeking. They will discover that 
by means of it we are planting the roots from which 
will inevitably grow all the higher harmonic results in 
society which they have ever contemplated. They will 
perceive that true society is a growth from true prin- 
ciples, not an artificial formation — a growth from 
seeds implanted in the soil of such society as now ex- 
ists — the only soil we have. They will perceive that 
while their ends and purposes are true, and their aspi- 
rations prophetic, their methods have not been scien- 
tific ; and such, perhaps few in number, will return 
with renewed zeal to the work of reform, through the 
more modest and unpretending instrumentalities of the 
Labor JYote^ and the formation of Equitable Villages. 
14 



158 COST THE LIMIT OF PRICE. 

Others, who have been too long dazzled by the splendor 
of that brilliant future in which they make their ideal 
habitation to be able to look with complacency upon . 
any practical adaptation to the present wants of man- 
kind, must bide their time. 

192. My present labor is to commend the Cost Prin- 
ciple, as far as practicable, to each of these several 
classes without offending the prejudices of any. I shall 
therefore, as I have intimated, sketch merely in out- 
line the tendencies of this principle to accomplish, in 
social relations, the highest results that have ever been 
dreamed of by any class of reformers, leaving at the 
same time intact, at every stage of progress, the free- 
dom of the Individual. It is not those ulterior results 
with which the reformers of this day will have chiefly 
to employ themselves. Those who require to perceive 
them to find in the principles a sufficient stimulus to 
work^for their realization, and with whom the beatific 
vision would serve rather as a stimulant than as a sed- 
ative, will be precisely those who can fill up the pic- 
ture without foreign aid. 

193. The principle among the higher results grow- 
ing directly out of the operations of the Cost Princi- 
ple may be generalized under the heads of: 1. At- 
tractive Industry. 2. Co-operation instead of Antag- 
onism, and 3. The Economies of Co-operation and the 
Large Scale. 

194. The main features of Attractive Industry are, 
as already shown, that each individual have, at all 
times, the choice of his own pursuits, with the oppor- 
tunity to vary them ad libitum. This last, the oppor- 
tunity to vary one's industry, results from the fact that 



THE HIGHER RESULTS OF THE PRINCIPLE. 159 

all avenues are eqnalty open to all by tlie extinction of 
speculation, and the adoption of cost as the limit of 
price, whereby it becomes the interest of all that each 
should perfect himself in various occupations, thereby 
discovering those at which he can be most effective, 
and avoiding the liability to be employed at those for 
which he has no attraction or capacity. The freedom 
to vary involves the original freedom to choose, which 
stands upon the same basis. The variety of individ- 
ual taste leads to a continual deviation on the part of 
single individuals, from the common standards of esti- 
mate, according to which every article tends constantly 
to acquire, under the operation of the Cost Principle, 
a settled and determinate price. The ideas here sug- 
gested require, however, to be separately and more 
specifically considered . 

195. How is there any equality established in the 
price asked by different people for the same kind of 
labor, when 'the price is based upon the estimate which 
each one makes of the repugnance of that labor to him- 
self or herself personally — when, too, it is well known 
that there exists such variety of tastes, or attractions 
and repulsions in different individuals for various kinds 
of industry 1 

The answer is first practical, as follows : During the 
three years and upward of practice at Trialville, 
and during two previous experiments, one at Cincin- 
nati, and one at New Harmony, Indiana, extending to 
six or seven years of the practice of the Cost Princi- 
ple, and of the use of the Labor Note in connection 
with it, by several thousand people in all, the varia- 
tion in all the different species of male and female in- 



160 COST THE LIMIT OF PSICE. 

dustry lias not been more than about one third above 
and one third below the standard occupation of corn- 
raising, each person putting his or her own estimate 
upon their labor. To explain : The standard labor 
beiDg reckoned at twenty pounds of corn to the hour, 
as the yard-stick, or measure of comparison, no other 
labor performed either by man or woman — and it must 
be remembered that under the Cost Principle men and 
women are remunerated equally — has been estimated 
at more than thirty pounds of corn to the hour, nor at 
less than twelve pounds to the hour. 

196. The further practical result is that every or- 
dinary commodity, though liable to fluctuate in price 
with every change of circumstances, like a difference 
of locality, extraordinary difference in the productive- 
ness of different seasons, etc., soon finds a general 
level, and has a known or fixed price in the commu- 
nity, which is never disturbed except for some obvious 
cause. Thus, for example, wheat has in this manner 
settled down by the common suffrage at Trialville, 
to cost six hours of labor to the bushel, or to yield ten 
pounds to the hour. Milk is ten minutes labor to the 
quart — the elements of the calculation including the 
whole cost of rearing a cow from the calf, the average 
length of a cow's usefulness for milking purposes, the 
cost of feeding, milking, and distributing the milk to 
the customers, etc. Eggs are twenty minutes to the 
dozen. Potatoes are an hour and a quarter to the 
bushel when cultivated by the plough exclusively, and 
three or four hours to the bushel when cultivated by 
the hoe. The manufacture of shoes, apart from the 



THE HIGHER RESULTS OF THE PRINCIPLE. 161 

material, is from three hours to nine hours to the pair, 
according to the quality ; boots eighteen hours, etc. 

19T.. Another practical effect, as already observed, 
is, that the principle of exact equity, when it enters 
into the mind, operates with such force that persons on 
all hands become over-anxious to ascertain the precise 
truth with regard to the relative cost of every article, 
while the general improvement of condition renders 
them less anxious about trifling individual advantage. 

198. Although commodities thus settle naturally 
and rapidly to a standard price, according to what is 
the average time bestowed upon their production, and 
the average estimate of the relative repugnance of each 
kind of labor, in other words, the average of cost, there 
are, or may be, individual dirfferences in the estimate of 
repugnance, which will rise far above or sink below the 
average. These individualities of preference for one 
species of industry over another will probably become 
more marked in proportion as men and women can 
better afforH to indulge their tastes and preferences, in 
consequence of a general improvement of their pecu- 
niary condition. Again, those tastes themselves will 
become more developed with the increase of culture. 
The opportunity for their indulgence will be afforded 
also in proportion to the augmentation of the circle in 
which these principles are practiced. Hence it fol- 
lows that whatever is more exceptional or recondite in 
the subject, must as yet be settled by recurring to the 
principles themselves, the circle in- which they have 
hitherto been applied being too small to realize all the 
results. 

199. The theoretical answer, then, deduced from 



162 COST THE LI?JIT OF PRICE. 

the principle, in addition to the practical answer just 
given, is this : Whenever an individual estimates labor 
in any particular branch of industry as less onerous or 
repugnant than the standard or average estimate, he 
will present himself as a candidate for that kind of la- 
bor at a less price fer hour than others, and will, in 
consequence, be selected in preference to others ^ un- 
less the inferior price is more than counterbalanced by 
want of skill or capacity for that kind of labor. But 
preference for a particular kind of industry — especially 
when there are facilities for trying one's self at various 
kinds — generally accompanies and often results from 
superior skill or facility in the performance of that 
kind of labor. Hence a taste or " attraction" for a 
particular branch of industry, by lowering the price at 
which a person is ready to undertake it, tends to throw 
that branch of industry, or rather that particular labor, 
into the hands of the individual who has that attraction. 
200. In the next place, as these tvfo properties, 
namely, a marked attraction and eminent ability for a 
particular kind of labor, accompany each other, it fol- 
lows that the best talent is procured at the lowest in- 
stead of the highest price, apart from the case of an 
acquired skill, which has required a separate and un- 
productive labor for its acquisition, and vfhich is, there- 
fore, as we have seen, an element of cost and price. 
In other words, contrary to what is now the case, the 
man or woman who can do the most work of any given 
kind in a given time and do it best, will work at the 
cheapest rate, so that, both on account of the more and 
better work and of the less price, he or she will have 
the advantage in bidding for his or her favorite occu- 



THE HIGHER RESULTS OF THE PRINCIPLE. 168 

pation, competition intervening to bring down the av- 
erage of price to the lowest point for every article, hut 
with none hut heneficial results to any one, as will be 
presently more distinctly shown. (208.) 

201. Such are the necessary workings of the Cost 
Principle, and hence follow certain extremely impor- 
tant results. I. Herein is the chief element of " At- 
tractive Industry^^^ the grand desideratum of human 
conditions, first distinctly propounded by Fourier, and 
now extensively appreciated by reformers — the choice 
by each individual of his own function or occupation, 
according to his natural bias or genius, and the conse- 
quent employment of all human powers to the best ad- 
vantage of all. 

202. II. By this means competition is directed to, 
and made to ivork at, precisely the right point. Com- 
petition is spoken of by those who live in and breathe 
the atmosphere of the existing social order, as " the 
life of business'' — the grand stimulant, without which 
the world would sink into stagnation. It is spoken of, 
on the other hand, by the reformers of the Socialist 
school, who loathe the existing order, and long ear- 
nestly for the reign of harmony in human relations, as 
a cruel and monstrous principle, kept in operation only 
at the sacrifice of the blood and tears of the groaning 
millions of mankind. In point of fact it is both ; or, 
more properly, it is either one or the other, according 
to the direction in which it is allowed to operate. 
Competition is a motive power, like steam or electri- 
city, and is either destructive or genial, according to its 
application. In the existing social order it is chiefly 
destructive, because it operates upon the point of in- 



164 COST THE LIMIT OF PRICE. 

suring security of condition, or tlie means of exist- 
ence. It is, tlierefore, desperate, unrelenting, and 
consequently destructive. Under the reign of equitj^ 
it will operate at the point of superioriti/ of j^erform- 
ance in the respective functions of each member of so- 
ciety, and will, therefore, be purely beneficent in its 
results. In the scramble between wrecked and strug- 
gling sea-farers for places in the life-boat,, we have an 
illustration of competition for security of condition. 
In the generous emulation between those safely seated 
in a pleasure-boat, who think themselves most compe- 
tent to pull at the oar, jou have an illustration of ge- 
nial or beneficent competition — competition for superi- 
ority of performance — under such circumstances that, 
whoever carries off the palm, the interests of the whole 
are equally promoted. In either case it is the same 
motive power, the same energy-giving principle, work- 
ing merely at a diiFerent point, or with a different ap- 
plication, and with a different stimulus. (159.) 

203. Competition in the existing social order is, 
therefore, chiefly destructive, because there is now no 
security of condition for any class of society. Among 
the less fortunate classes, competition bears more upon 
the point of getting the chance to labor at all, at any 
occupation, which, inequitably paid, as the labor of 
those classes is, will afford the bare means of exist- 
ence. Among the more fortunate classes, increased 
accumulation is the only means now known of approx- 
imating security of condition ; hence competition bears 
upon that point. Among all classes, therefore, the 
competition is chiefly for security of condition, and 
therefore merciless and destructive. It is only occa- 



THE HIGHEU RESULTS OF THE PRmCIPLE. 165 

sionally and by way of exception, wherever a little 
temporary security is obtained, that examples are 
found of the natural and beneficent competition for su- 
periority of 'performance. That however springs up 
with such spontaneous alacrity, so soon as the smallest 
chance is given it, as abundantly to prove that it is 
the true spirit, the indigenous growth of the human 
soul, when uncontrolled by adverse circumstances and 
conditions. 

204. Under the operations of the Cost Principle, 
which will be the reign of equity, the primary wants 
of each will be supplied by the employment of a very 
small portion of their time, and the ease and certainty 
with which they can be supplied will place each above 
the motives now existing to invade the property of oth- 
ers. This condition of things, together with the sub- 
stitution of general co-operation and abundance for 
general anta,gonism and poverty, will- furnish a security 
of person and property which nothing else can pro- 
duce. To this will be added such accumulations as 
each may, without the stimulus of desperation, choose 
to acquire. 

205. In this condition of security, natural and be- 
neficent competition will spring up ; that is, such as 
bears upon the point of superiority of performance — 
not only for such reasons as exist and occasionally de- 
velop themselves in the existing society, but also be- 
cause, under the operation of the Cost Principle, 
every person is, as we have seen, necessarily gratified 
with the pursuit of his favorite occupation, in propor- 
tion as his superiority of performance renders him the 
more successful competitor for employment in that 



166 COST THE LIMIT OF PRICE. 

line — ^not hindered by asking a higher price for his 
greater excellence, as now, but aided, on the other 
hand, by his readiness to perform it at a lower price, 
consequent upon his greater attraction or his want of 
repugnance for that kind of industry, according to what 
has been already explained. This, then, is the second 
grand result of the varying tastes for different occupa- 
tions, under the operation of the Cost Principle, 
namely, that competition is directed to, and made to 
work at, the right point — superiority of performance^ 
not security of condition. 

206. Under the operation of cost as the limit of 
price, things will be so completely revolutionized that, 
strange as it may seem, it will he to the jjositive in- 
terest of every workman to he thrown out of his own 
business by the competition of any one who can do 
the same labor better and cheaper. In the nature of 
the case it is an advantage for every body that the 
prices of every product should become less and less, 
until, if that be possible, they cease, through the gen- 
eral abundance, to have price altogether. Under the 
present false arrangements of commerce we have seen 
that it is not for the benefit, but for the injury of 
many, that such reduction of price should occur, either 
through competition, the invention of new machines, or 
otherwise. (160.) Some of the reasons of that un- 
natural result have been pointed out. (161, 162.) It 
is, in fine, because the workingmen are reduced below 
the ability of availing themselves of what should be, 
in the nature of things, a blessing to all mankind. 
When the market is said to be overstocked with coats 
or hats, and when, as a consequence of this, the tailors 



THE HIGHER RESULTS OF THE PRINCIPLE. 167 

and hatters are thrown out of employment, it is not 
the fact that there are more coats and hats made than 
there are backs and heads to wear them. Not at all. 
It is only that there are more than there is ability to 
buy. Those who have earned the means to pay for 
them do not possess the means. They have been rob- 
bed of the means by receiving less than equivalents 
for their labor. Hence though they want they cannot 
buy, and hence, again, those who produce must stop 
producing. They are therefore thrown out of employ- 
ment, and it is falsely said that there is over-produc- 
tion in that branch of industry. In the reign of equity, 
where all receive equivalents for their labor, this cause 
of what is called over-production "\Yill not exist. 

207. The point here asserted will be rendered still 
more clear under the following head. (208.) Along 
with the extinction of speculation, by Cost as the limit 
of Price, competition will cease to be a desperate game 
played for desperate stakes. It will not relate to pro- 
curing the opportunity to labor, as that will be the 
common and assured inheritance of all. It will not 
relate to securing an augmentation of Price, because 
Price will be adjusted by Science and guarded by Good 
Morals, public opinion and private interest concurring 
to keep it at what science awards. It will relate solely, 
in fine, to excellence of performance — to the giving to 
each individual of that position in life to which his 
tastes incline him, and for which his powers of mind 
and body adapt him, even the selfishness that might 
otherwise embitter such a strife being tempered, or 
neutralized, by the equilibrium of a greater price for 
more repugnant labor. 



10(5 COST THE LIMIT OF PRICE. 

208. III. Competition is rendered co-operative in- 
stead of antagonistic. This may not at first seem to 
be a distinct point, but it is really so. It was sbown 
before that competition is made to work at the right 
point, namely, excellence of performance. But that 
excellence or superiority might still enure exclusively 
or chiefly to the benefit of the individual who possesses 
it. Such is now the case, to a fearful extent, with 
machinery, which has the first of these properties, 
namely, that it competes with labor at the right point, 
excellence of performance, but has not the second; 
that is, it is not co-operative with unaided human la- 
bor, but antagonistic to it, turning out thousands of 
laborers to starve, on account of its own superiority. 

The point to be shown now, is, that under the ope- 
ration of the Cost Principle, excellence of perform- 
ance — the point competed for, whether by individu- 
als or machinery — enures equally to the benefit of all, 
and hence that competition, rightly directed, and work- 
ing under the true law of price, is co-operative and not 
antagonistic ; although, as respects machinery, the de- 
monstration will be rendered more perfect when we 
come to consider the legitimate use of capital. (243.) 

209. Illustrations of practical operation will be bet- 
ter understood if drawn from the alFairs of the small 
village than if taken from the more extended and com- 
plex business of the large town. 

Suppose, then, that in such a village, A is an extra- 
ordinary adept wdth the ax. He can chop three cords 
of wood a day. C and D are the next in facility at 
this labor to A, and can chop tAVO cords and a half a 
d;j.y,. Now, under the operation of this principle, as 



THE HIGHER RESULTS OF THE PRINCIPLE, 169 

showed previously, if they are employed at all in chop- 
ping, they will all be paid at the same rate per hour. 
If there is any difference it will probably be that A, 
along Yfith this superior ability, will have an extraor- 
dinary fondness for the kind of labor as compared with 
other kinds, or, what is the same thing, he will have 
less repugnance for it, and that he will, if thoroughly 
imbued with the principle, place his labor at a less 
price than the established average price for wood-chop 
ping. The consequence will be that the services of A 
will be first called into requisition for all the wood- 
chopping in the village, so long as there is not more 
than he can or is wilhng to do. It will only be when 
the quantity of labor is greater than he can or will per- 
form, that the services of C and D will be required, 
then those of the next grade of capacity, and so on. 
The point now to be illustrated is, that it is the whole 
village that 'is benefited by the superior excellence of 
A, and then of B and C, etc., in this business, and 
not those individuals alone. While A can chop all the 
wood for the village, the price of wood-chopping is less, 
or in other words, wood-chopping is cheaper to the 
whole village than it is when the inferior grades of 
talent have to be brought in ; because he does more 
work in the hour, and is paid no more in any event, 
and perhaps less for it. Consequently, again, the cost, 
and hence the price of cooking, and hence again of 
board, is all less to every consumer. So of heating 
rooms. So of the blacksmith's work, the shoemaker's 
work, and, in fine, of every article of consumption pro- 
duced in the village ; because the manufacturers of all 
these articles, while engaged in the manufacture, con- 
15 



170 COST THE LIMIT OF PHICE. 

sume wood, whicli vfood has to be cliopped, and the 
cost of which enters into the cost of their products ; 
and inasmuch as these products are again sold at cost, 
it follows that the price of every article manufactured 
and consumed is reduced by the superior excellence of 
A as a wood-chopper. In this general advantage A is 
merely a common participant with the other inhabit- 
ants ; but then, in turn, the same principle is opera- 
ting to place each of those others in that occupation in 
which he excels, and their excellence in each of these 
occupations, respectively, is operating in the same man- 
ner, to reduce the price of every other article which A, 
as well as others, has to purchase. Hence it follows 
that the very competition which crowds a man out of 
one occupation and fills it with another, on account of 
his superior performance, turns just as much to the 
benefit of the man vfho is put out of his place, as it does 
to that of the man who is installed in it, all avenues 
being open to him to enter other pursuits, and there 
being labor enough at some pursuit for all. Henee it 
follows that under the operation of the Cost Pkinci- 
PLE competition is rendered co-operative, and that 
co-operation becomes universal instead of the now pre- 
vailing antagonism of interests. 

210. Let us take an additional illustration. In 
wood-chopping the chief point of superiority is in the 
rapidity of performance. In other occupations it is 
different. Take the case of a clerk or copyist. Here 
there are three or four points of excellence, speed, ele- 
gance, legibility and accuracy. All this does not in 
the least affect the principle. The competition may 
be for the combination of the greatest excellence in 



THE HIGHER RESULTS OF THE PRINCIPLE. 171 

each of these propertieis, or it may be, in case there is 
enough of the business to divide itself into branches, 
for the particular kind of excellence which is wanted 
in the particular branch. There is some copying in 
which speed is of far more importance than elegance, 
and vice versa. It is still, in the same manner, to the 
mutual advantage of all, that those persons shall be 
employed in writing, and in each branch of writing, 
who are most expert in it, because that reduces to 
every body the price of making out titles to property, 
keeping records and the like, and as these expenses 
enter again into the cost, and consequently into the 
price of houses and rent, they enter again into the 
price of board, and so of every article, rendering the 
competition again co-operative and not antagonistic. 

211. It has now, I think, been sufficiently shown that 
competition, under this system of principles, is really 
CO- operative J and therefore purely beneficent, provided 
the two conditions above-stated are sufficiently secured ; 
first, that the avenues be open to every individual to 
enter any pursuit according to Ms tastes without ar- 
tificial obstacles; and, secondly, that there be at all 
times labor enough for all. 

Every body will, therefore, be naturally and con- 
tinually aided, from the common interest, by every 
body around him, in placing himself in that position 
where he has most capacity to act, which, as has been 
stated, will, in the end, be that also, if he has the op- 
portunity to try himself at different occupations, for 
which he will have the greatest fondness or appetency. 
The avenues to employment ?nust therefore be all open 
to all persons. It will be as much to the interest of 



172 COST THE LIMIT OF PRICE. 

all that tliey should be so, as it is now their interest to 
prevent it. Now, men wish to monopolize certain oc- 
cupations which are profitable, because it is to their 
pecuniary advantage to do so. Then, men can have no 
other motive for doing so than their preference for 
sxercising these occupations themselves, which prefer- 
ence must be indulged, if indulged at all, by keeping 
out better qualified men, adversely to their own pecu- 
niary interests and the interests of the whole commu- 
nity around them. 

212. But when antagonistic competition is out of the 
way, similar industrial tastes form one of the strongest 
bonds of friendship. In a community constituted upon 
these principles, to keep any person out of his true in- 
dustrial position, by conspiracy of any sort, would be 
both a dishonest and dishonorable act. Hence it fol- 
lows that pecuniary interest, natural sympathy with 
those of similar tastes, morality, and the sense of honor, 
would all conspire to overcome any personal preference 
for a particular occupation such as would otherwise ex- 
clude better qualified men. This combination of mo- 
tives will be sufficient to keep a fair and open field for 
the contest of merit in every department of industry. 
In the existing social disorder men are, for the most 
part, thrust by chance into the positions which they 
occupy, and the pursuits which they follow. Nobody 
but the man himself feels the slightest interest in his 
being in that place in which he can make the best use 
of his powers. If his position happens to be a fortu- 
nate adaptation to his capacities, the gain is his own. 
It is monopolized by him through the operation of the 
value principle, or, the benefit, if felt at all by the 



THE HIGHER RESULTS OF THE PRINCIPLE. 173 

public, is SO remotely felt that there is no general in- 
terest manifested in the matter, and it is accordingly 
left entirely to cliance. Consequently, men, consid- 
ered merely as instruments of jjroduction, are now 
employed as much at random as the implements of a 
farm would he, if a savage, smitten with a taste for 
agriculture, had installed himself in the farm-house, 
and begun by using the harrow for a hetchel, the hand- 
saw for an ax, the sickle for a pruning-hook, the rake 
for a hoe, and so on. Hence, under the operation of 
the Cost Principle, the superior excellence of each 
individual in that occupation in which he excels, se- 
cures his employment in it, both because that is the 
point upon which competition bears, and because the 
advantage of his being employed in it inures directly 
to the benefit of every member of society, by lowering 
the price of the article which he^ produces, rendering 
every one anxious to see him so placed, and ready to 
aid him by every means to place himself there. 

213. It has been stated, and partially demonstrated, 
that the idea of the liability to an excess of human la- 
bor is on a par with the obsolete notion of an excess of 
blood in the human system. (161.) With the preva- 
lence of a thorough and varied industrial education on 
the part of the whole people, such as is rendered pos- 
sible by the Cost Principle, but the details of which 
do not belong to this volume — with the removal of all 
artificial obstacles to the free entrance by all upon all 
industrial pursuits — with adequate arrangements for 
knowing the wants of all, and for distributing the pro- 
ducts of all, so as skillfully to subserve those wants 5 
through a scientific adjustment of supply to demand—- 



174 COST THE LIMIT OF PRICE. 

with that complete removal of the hindrances to the 
free interchange of commodities now occasioned by the 
scarcity and expensiveness of the circulating medium, 
which will result from the Labor Note as a currency, 
conyerting ail labor at once into cash, and the means 
of commanding the results of all other labor the world 
over — with all these conditions, and various others of 
less moment, operated by these principles, the infi- 
nitely varying wants of humanity, perpetually expand- 
ing under culture — together with the tendency to rest 
and simply enjoy, on the part of those who can, fostered 
by conscious security of condition, may be implicitly 
relied upon to call into use every degree and quality 
of human labor, which any body will be found willing 
to render, even down to the lowest grades of skill — ■ 
notwithstanding the fact that those who thus come in 
as it were last will be best paid. 

214. IV. — This brings us to the next point, namely, 
the Econojnies of Co-operation and of the Large 
Scale. Of the first branch of this subject, the econo- 
mies of co-operation, including attraction, it cannot be 
necessary that much should be said. Illustrations 
have already been given of the waste of human exer- 
tion consequent upon antagonism, and the want of 
adaptation between the man and his pursuit. (151, 
212.) The genius of any reader is adequate to filling 
up the hideous catalogue to repletion. Equity destroys 
antagonism, and opens the way to the performance of 
every function in the most economical way. 

215. The economy resulting upon the performance 
of labor upon the large instead of the small scale is 
"well understood and highly appreciated, in our present 



THE HIGHER RESULTS OF THE PRINCIPLE. 175 

Stage of civilization, jast so far as the application of 
the principle chances to have been made. It is known, 
for example, that a thousand persons can be profitably 
transported at a trip, upon a magnificent steamboat, 
from New York to Albany, a distance of one hundred 
and sixty miles, at fifty cents for each person, while to 
run the same boat, or any boat with like elegance and 
conveniences, ten miles, for the accommodation of one 
individual, would cost several hundred dollars. It is 
not yet generally understood that the same principle 
applied on land may, and will yet, house the whole pop- 
ulation in palaces, and cause the masses of mankind to 
enjoy an immunity from want heretofore enjoyed by 
the privileged classes only. The glorious truth is not 
yet generally understood, that every man, woman, and 
child may, by a scientific arrangement of the appli- 
ances for the production and distribution of v/ealth, be 
rendered infinitely richer than any, even the most priv- 
ileged individual, is now. After having seen that luci- 
fer matches can be manufactured and sold at a penny 
a bunch, by carrying on the manufacture as a business 
upon the large scale, the absurdity would immediately 
appear — the waste of human exertion would be too ob- 
vious to escape attention — if every housekeeper in a 
large city were to rise each successive morning, go out 
and purchase. a few splinters of pine, with a little pot 
of sulphur, and manufacture, by the expenditure of half 
an hour's time, from one to a half dozen matches with 
which to kindle her fire the following day. It is not 
so readily perceived, hovfever, as it will be at a futuie 
day, that the absurdity is of the same sort when 75,000 
women are engaged daily, in the city of Nev/ York, 



176 COST THE LIMIT OF PRICE. 

and twice a day, in boiling three quarts of water each 
in a tea-kettle. The benefits of labor-saving machinery 
are derived from the operation of this principle, the 
essential economy of the large scale. In the isolated 
household those benefits can never be applied to cook- 
ing, washing, ironing, house-cleaning, and the like. 
Hence, in the isolated household, the drudgery to which 
woman is now condemned can never be materially al- 
leviated. The facility with which these tiresome la- 
bors are now performed in the large American hotels, 
in some of our charitable institutions, and even in pris- 
ons, is a standing irony upon the wretched and poverty- 
stricken arrangements of our domestic establishments. 
Any system of social reorganization which should in- 
volve the necessity of individual or family isolation 
would be, therefore, essentially faulty, while, on the 
other hand, every individual must be left entirely free 
to seek and enjoy as much solitude or privacy as he or 
she may choose, assuming for themselves the additional 
cost of such indulgence. 

216. While the public at large have not pushed 
their investigations into the wonderful results which 
are yet to come from new applications of this princi- 
ple of economy — in the immense augmentation of 
wealth, leisure, luxury, and refinement to be partici- 
pated in by the whole people — Social Reformers have 
not failed to do so. Many of them have reveled in 
their brilliant imaginings of the future until they have 
become maddened at the stupidity of the world, and 
denounce with a vehemence, which seems insanity to 
their less appreciative fellow-men, the folly and ab- 
surdity of our existing social arrangements. The folly 



THE HIGHER RESULTS OF THE PRINCIPLE. 177 

is, however, by no means confined to tlie Conservative. 
The Socialist has proposed no method of realizing the 
splendid social revolution which he advocates, other 
than combinations, industrial associations, or extensive 
partnership interests. The Conservative has rightly 
seen in such arrangements insuperable difficulties of 
administration, and a ruinous surrender of the freedom 
of the individual. The demand is now urgent for a 
solution of this embroglio. The Cost Principle fur- 
nishes that solution in that method of its operation 
which I am about to specify. Herein, then, is the 
conciliation of the seemingly conflicting truths of So- 
cialism and Conservatism. 

217. It has been already stated that the individual- 
ization or disconnection of interests insisted upon by 
us has in it none of the features of isolation — that there 
is, in fine, in these principles, nothing adverse to the 
largest enterprises, and the most thorough organiza- 
tion in every department of business. The disconnec- 
tion relates to the methods of ownership and adminis- 
tration^ not to the aggregation of persons. It is ad- 
verse alone to sinking the distinction or blending the 
lines of individual property, but in no manner to the 
closest association, the most intimate relations, and the 
most effective co-operation between the owners of the 
interests thus sharply defined. We affirm, indeed, 
that it is only out of this prior and continuous rigid 
ascertainment of rights that mutual harmony and ben- 
eficial co-operation can ever accrue. To obliterate the 
lines of individual property and administration is al- 
ways and every where to plunge into utter and hope- 
less confusion. Such is the sin of Communism. To 



178 COST THE LIMIT OF PRICE. 

interlock and combine tlie several interests of a com- 
munity so that the will of one party, in the manage- 
ment of his own, can be overborne by the will of an- 
other individual, or any majority of individuals in the 
world, or his conduct in the administration of that 
•which is his, subjected to the authorized criticism of 
others, is a species of multiplication in which confusioii 
and despotism are the factors, and the natural and 
inevitable product, in all delicately constituted and 
•well-developed minds, abhorrence a-nd disgust. Such 
is the sin of all partnerships. Trades' Associations, 
and Fourieristic Phalansterian joint-stock arrange- 
ments whatsoever. 

218. Let it be observed distinctly, however, that in 
none of these proposed reorganizations of society is the 
fallacy to be found in the magnificent amplitude of di- 
mensions, the complex variety of development, the in- 
timate societary life, the general prevalence of wealth, 
luxury, and refinement, nor in the indispensable postu- 
latum of universal co-operation. All this, and more, 
lies hid in the womb of time, and the hour of parturi- 
tion is at hand. The futility of all these schemes of 
social regeneration is to be found alone in the want of 
individualization as the starting point, the perpetual 
accompaniment, and the final development of the move- 
ment, and the failure to discover that in harmonious 
juxtaposition with the complete severance and appa- 
rent opposition of individual interests, lies the most 
liberal, perfect, and all-pervading system of mutual 
co-operation, developed through a process almost ridic- 
ulously simple — the mere cessation of mutual robbery 



THE HIGHER RESULTS OF THE PRINCIPLE. 179 

by the erection and observance of a scientific measure 
of price and standard of equivalents. 

219. A single illustration will render clear the way 
in which, out of the limitation of all price to the mere 
cost of performance and production, grows the tendency 
to aggregation, and the doing of all work upon the 
large, and thereby upon the economical scale — hut 
without partnership interest or Comhi7iation in the 
technical sense of that term^ as differi^ig from Co- 
operation. (49, 50.) Take the case of an Eating- 
house conducted upon the Cost Principle. If fifty, 
one hundred, or five hundred persons eat at the same 
establishment, the economy is immense over providing 
the same number of people with the same style of liv- 
ing in ten, twenty, or one hundred separate establish- 
ments. Hence the large and elegant eating saloon, 
with cleanliness, order, artistic skill, and abundance, 
in the preparation of food, is a cheaper arrangement 
than the meager and ill-conditioned private table. 
The general facts in this respect are too well known 
to require to be specifically established. In the Eat- 
ing-house, as it now exists in large cities, the economy 
here spoken of is actually secured, that is, each boarder 
is fed at less actual cost than he could be in the iso- 
lated household ; but the saving thus effected does not 
go into the pocket of the boarder, nor accrue in any 
manner to his benefit. On the contrary, he is ordina- 
rily compelled to pay more than it would cost him to 
supply himself at home. Hence, there is no general 
and controlling influence of the eating-house system to 
call the population out of their private establishments 
and induce them to live upon the large scale, at public 



180 COST THE LIMIT OF PIIICE, 

saloons. There are conveniences and agreeable fea- 
tures in that mode of life which address themselves to 
certain classes of persons, bachelors with ample means, 
merchants whose business is at a distance from their 
homes, travelers, tem.porary citizens, etc., which over- 
balance the repulsion of enhanced price, and supply 
these establishments with a given amount of custom. 
They fail, however, on account of that enhanced price, 
to break up, as they w^ould inevitably do if the price 
were much less instead of greater, the isolated house- 
hold system of cookery, which is now one of the primary 
causes of the unmitigated drudgery and undevelopment 
of the female sex. 

220. As stated, then, the saving from the large 
scale now actually takes place, as it would do under 
the true system of administration, but instead of going 
to the benefit of the boarders at the establishment, 
it goes first in the form of profits to the keeper of the 
house, then in the form of rent from him to the party 
•who owns the house, and, finally, it is probable, in the 
form of interest from the owner of the premises to the 
money-lender, who has loaned the capital to construct 
it, while at the same time the operation of the prin- 
ciple is restricted, and the amount of the saving di- 
minished, by the causes which prevent the population 
generally from resorting to such establishments. Un- 
der the operation of the Cost Principle all this is re- 
versed. Nobody stands between the boarder and the 
saving which grows naturally^out of the economical 
tendency of the large scale. Nobody receives the 
benefit but himself. The keeper of the house makes 
no profit, but is paid simply an equivalent for his la- 



THE HIGHER RESULTS OF THE PRINCIPLE. 181 

bor, according to its degree of burdensomeness or re- 
pugnance — less, if it is less repugnant, than an attend- 
ant on the tables, or a cook in the kitchen. The owner 
of the house receives no rent, in the nature of profit^ 
but merely the wear and tear of the premises — the cost 
of maintaining them in an equally good condition (241 ); 
and, finally, there is no money-lender, levying an ad- 
ditional contribution for the supply of a circulating 
medium so scarce and expensive as to be capable of 
being monopolized. Hence, whoever lives at an Eat- 
ing-house managed upon the Cost Principle, lives 
either at a much cheaper rate than he can live in a pri- 
vate w^ay, or else in a much better style, or else with 
both of these elements of attraction combined. Hence, 
again, there is a potent influence under that principle, 
operating upon the whole com.munity to draw them out 
of their present solitary and poverty-stricken house- 
hold arrangements, into a larger "sphere of elegance, 
comfort, and refinement, while at the same time their 
full freedom is preserved to remain as they are, at their 
own cost. The seeds of a great social revolution are 
planted, while no prejudice is shocked. There is no 
pledge demanded, no premeditated concert of action, 
no sudden overturn or derangement of social habits, no 
enforced conformity, no authorized espionage and criti- 
cism. The change is effected gently, gradually, unob- 
trusively, and considerately toward all existing habits 
and feelings. 

221. Nor is the social revolution thus foreshadowed 
less radical and entire than that which is aspired after 
by the most advanced of Social Reformers. It differs 
in the fact that it is a natural growth from simple 



182 COST THE LIMIT OF PHICE. 

roots implanted in the common understanding, in the 
form of principles or mere suggestions of honesty — not 
a splendid and complicated a priori arrangement of 
details as a great work of art. The same principle 
hero illustrated with reference to the Eating-house, 
applies of course to the Public Wash-house, to the 
Infant School, or Common Nurser}^ for the professional 
rearing, training, and development of children, and to 
every other advantageous arrangement of societary life. 
Relieved of the burden of cooking, washing, and nurs- 
ing, except as her tastes lead her to participate in one 
or other of these pursuits professionally, it becomes 
competent to woman to elect and vary her career in 
life with as much freedom as man. Then, and never 
until then, can woman become an Individual herself, 
instead of a mere hanger-on upon the destinies of an- 
other. Then, and not until then, can the intellect of 
the woman be developed so as to form the appropriate 
counterpoise to her affectionate nature. There is not, 
in our existing society, one woman in a hundred who 
knows as much at the age of forty as she knew at 
twenty. Confined, for the most part, to the same nar- 
row circle of household affairs, with children, nurses, 
and housemaids as her associates, she shrinks men- 
tally instead of expanding, and comes finally to nau- 
seate, and to object with sickly fastidiousness to those 
changes in her condition which are essential to her 
emancipation. Hence it is only in the rare case of 
highly endowed and well-developed womanhood, that 
the Social Reformer meets the hearty sympathy of the 
sex in those plans of domestic amelioration which art 
indispensable to the assumption by her of that rank in 



THE HIGHER llESULTS OF THE PRINCIPLE. 183 

the social hierarchy for ^^hich nature has disposed her, 
and which, despite of herself as it were, she is des- 
tined to attain. 

222. Again, when these several domestic functions 
are performed severally upon the large scale, addi- 
tional conveniences vail be found to arise from com- 
bining the Eating-house, the Laundry, the Nursery, 
the Lying-in Department, etc., etc., in one unitary 
edifice, and conducting the whole upon a plan not in- 
ferior, perhaps, in magnificence and extent to the Pha- 
lansterian order of Fourier. It is not my purpose to 
trace out these ulterior developments of the principle. 
The social philosopher will, from this point, do that 
for himself. However magnificent may be the scale 
upon which the social order, grovfing out of these prin- 
ciples, shall finally adjust itself, there will be in it al- 
ways the marked distinction from every Social Reform 
heretofore proposed, that every grand public undertak- 
ing, whether it be an Eating Establishment to accom- 
modate several hundred persons or families, a Hos- 
pital, a Public Laundry, a Hotel for the accommoda- 
tion of travelers, a Factory, a huge Workshop, a 
Plantation, the complicated arrangements of trans- 
portation and navigation, or, finally, the Phalanstery 
itself, combining every convenience, and all the func- 
tions of social life on the most extended scale, will still 
be a strictly individual enterprise, the outbirth of the 
genius and activity of a single mind. Hundreds of 
men and women may be engaged in the administration, 
some of whom will be at the head of the various de- 
partments, but all of them rigidly subordinate to the 
grand design of the projector, who will be the despot 



184 COST THE LIMIT OF PRICE. 

of his own dominions, exercising, nevertheless, a be- 
neficent despotism, wherein the highest and best ex- 
pression of himself, wrought out in his w^ork, redounds 
equally to the good of all others who are related in any 
manner to the transaction — a self-elected governor of 
mankind, by the divine right of genius or supereminent 
ability to excogitate and perform. At the same time, 
whoever evinces the higher grades of inventive and or- 
ganizing talent, will have the command freely of the 
requisite capital to aid the execution of his designs, 
limited only by the aggregate amount of surplus capi- 
tal in the community as compared with the number of 
such beneficent enterprises on foot. This effect will 
result from the fact that, under the operation of the 
Cost Principle, capital of itself earns nothing, and 
hence that all persons in the community who have sur- 
plus accumulations of wealth, will prefer that such ac- 
cumulations shall be intrusted to, and be administered 
by, those persons who demonstrate the greatest capa- 
city for doing so, in that way which will contribute 
most to the public welfare ; a benefit in which the own- 
ers of such capital will participate ^long with the whole 
public — in addition to their right to withdraw their in- 
vestments in such installments as they may require for 
their own use. The ideas involved in this paragraph 
will be further developed in the next chapter, in treat- 
ing of Capital and the " Wages System." (230, 249.) 
223. It follows, then, that by the simple opera- 
tion of Equity, attractive industry is secured, co- 
operation is rendered beneficent instead of destructive, 
all the economies are effected, and this still with a com- 
plete preservation, on all hands, of Individuality and 



THE HIGHER RESULTS OF THE PRINCIPLE. 185 

the Sovereignty of the Individual. Co-operation is 
rendered universal by the same means, speculation is 
banished, antagonisms of all sorts are neutralized, a 
complete Adaptation of Supply to Demand is for the 
first time in the world rendered practicable, and man- 
kind enter upon a career of harmony, development, and 
happiness which the experience of all past ases has 
been but a painful preparation to enjoy by strong con- 
trast, as dark shadoAvs relieve the lights upon the can- 
vas of the painter. Let the man or the woman who 
desires to participate in the work of installing the 
Reign of Harmony, put his or her hand to tlie work. 



186 COST THE LIMIT OF PRICE. 



CHAPTEE VII 

CAPITAL5 RENT, INTEREST, WAGES, MACHINERY, ETC. 

224. It remains to point out more specifically, tlie 
operation of the Cost Principle upon Capital, Rent, In- 
terest, Wages, and Machinery, with the true relations 
of these ma'tters to labor. Serious questions have been 
raised, in the recent discussions upon reform, upon all 
of these subjects, and innumerable difficulties have 
been felt in arriving at any satisfactory adjustment of 
the points at issue. It has been seen that capital or 
wealth already accumulated, is one element in the ac- 
cumulation of additional wealth, and hence it has ap- 
peared to be equitable that such capital, or rather the 
parties to whom such accumulated wealth pertained, 
should have some share in the new accumulations, in 
the production of which their capital has been instru- 
mental. In other words, it has been seen that wealth 
loaned to and employed by another, is a real benefit to 
that other, and the question is forcibly asked, why, 
then, should not the borrower, in justice, remunerate 
the lender to the extent of the benefit received, or, at 
least, to the extent of some part of that benefit ? This 
question has never been satisfactorily answered, and 
can never be answered so long as value, or he7iefit con- 
ferred, is recognized as a basis of remuneration or 
price. But we have seen that price rests, according 



EENT^ INTEREST, WAGES, MACHINERY, ETC. 18T 

to the true principles of science, wholly upon a differ- 
ent basis, and that benefit conferred is no ground of 
claim whatsoever. 

225. As this distinction between the true and the 
false basis of price is one of great importance to the 
solution of the questions now about to be treated of, I 
shall be pardoned for stating it again, and, if possible, 
rendering at still more obvious. All commerce has 
heretofore been conducted upon the idea of an ex- 
change of equivalent benefits. This is what has been 
denominated the Value Principle, which has been 
shown, as well by an analysis of the principle itself as 
by the pernicious consequences resulting from its ope- 
ration, to be essentially erroneous. The basis princi- 
ple of true commerce is, on the contrary, an exchange 
of equwalent burdens. No amount of benefit confer- 
red by one human being upon another gives the slight- 
est title to remuneration, provided the conferring of 
such benefit has cost nothing to the -party conferring it. 
To impart pleasure, and to shed an atmosphere of hap- 
piness in every direction, is the true life of all refined 
and vfell-developed humanity. To levy tribute as a 
consideration for the exercise of one's own higher na- 
ture, is to profane the most sacred things. It is true 
that the conferring of benefits does, by a natural effect, 
quicken the tendency to confer benefits in return, and 
in this manner to produce reciprocity ; but that ten- 
dency is stronger in proportion to the absence of all 
claim to such reciprocity. Price, relating solely to 
what can be appropriately claimed, has, then, no basis 
in benefit conferred. Hence, there is no justification 
whatever for interest or rent on capital, in the fact 



188 COST THE LIMIT OF PRICE. 

that tlie loan of capital confers a benefit upon the bor- 
rower wliicli he would not otherwise enjoy. Whatever 
basis there may be — and we shall see, presently, that 
there is a basis for a price, in some cases, for the use 
of capital — it is not the benefit conferred, and the price 
must not be measured in any manner whatsoever by 
the amount of that benefit. 

226. Another argument is used on behalf of those 
who defend the participation of capital in the results 
of labor, w4th no clear distinction, apparently, between 
it and the one above stated, in the minds of those who 
employ it. It is said that if I have property which I 
have accumulated by my labor, and you desire the use 
of it to enable you to accumulate property for yourself 
more rapidly than you could otherwise do, and I forego 
the use of it for your sake, and to my own deprivation, 
that I ought to be repaid for the sacrifice that I make. 
This position is rigidly correct. It is merely one form 
of statement of the Cost Principle itself. It is a state- 
ment that the sacrifice made, the burden endured, or 
the repugnance overcome on the part of the party mak- 
ing the loan, is a basis of price. It should be said, to 
make the statement complete, that such is the basis, 
and the only basis of price, so as to exclude entirely 
the mixed consideration of sacrifice endured by the one 
party, and benefit conferred upon the other. All just 
-price is in the nature of indemnification for damages . 
If no damage is incurred, no matter how enormous the 
benefit conferred, there can be no just price, and if the 
damage be ten times the amount of the benefit, the 
extent of the damage is nevertheless the measure of 
the price. Hence, the Cost Principle does not arbi- 



RENT, INTEREST, WAGES, MACHINERY, ETC. 189 

trarily decide that there shall be no price for the use 
of capital, or even that the price shall be extremely 
low. It simply determines when a price is allowable, 
and furnishes the standard by which the legitimate 
amount of the price may be ascertained. It sides with 
neither of the combatants upon the question, as the 
question has heretofore been discussed, but comes in 
between them and points out a new line of demarka- 
tion between the right and the wrong of the matter. 

227. This new line of demarkation runs with the 
amount of sacrifice which the owner and lender of cap- 
ital undergoes in depriving himself temporarily of the 
use of it, no regard whatever being had to the amount 
of benefit which the borrower may derive from it. 
Hence it follows that all suiylus capital — capital which 
the present convenience of the owner does not require 
for use or consumption, and which can be intrusted to 
the administration of another, without more risk than 
would be incurred by retaining it in the custody of the 
owner (230) — will be open to loan, without price in the 
form of interest or rent. The element of risk is an- 
other ground upon which interest is defended. Just 
so far as augmented risk is actually incurred by a loan, 
it is, in fact, a legitimate element of price, being part 
of the cost or burden imposed upon the lender. It will 
be shown, however, presently, that by the operation of 
these principles, risk will be reduced to a minimum — 
to those inevitable, possible contingences which may at- 
tach to the existence of wealth as well in the hands of 
the owner as any where else. Hence all capital which 
is a positive surplus over present necessities, will be 



190 COST THE LIMIT OF PRICE 

loaned — tlie moral and pecuniary security being ample 
— without price. (230.) 

228. But then the objection arises, that the real 
sacrifice made by the lender in depriving himself of the 
use of capital, as of money, for example, under the ex- 
isting regime, is precisely measured by the amount of 
interest which can be obtained for it in the market ; 
since by lending it without interest he is surrendering 
the opportunity to accumulate that amount, and hence 
that the new rule comes back practically to the same 
thing as the old one. The fallacy of this objection- 
would be quite obvious except for the perversion of the 
moral sense induced by the corrupting influence of the 
system in which we live. As it is, it may be neces- 
sary to probe it and expose it. It can be no sacrifice, 
it is no burden, it costs nothing, to the honest man, to 
surrender the opportunity which the wants of others 
confer upon him, to force them to give to him what he 
is not entitled to receive. It has been shown that he 
is entitled to receive nothing upon the ground of their 
wants, or the consequent benefit or relief which the 
loan will confer. The argument is this : I recognize 
that, in a transaction which I am about to have with 
you, the limits of my juat demand against you are the 
same as those of the amounts and claims which I 
am about to surrender; but then I find that among 
other things I am about to surrender an opportunity 
which circumstances have placed in my power to cheat 
you out of a thousand pounds, and I wish thereupon to 
augment my demand by that amount. Do you not 
perceive that I immediately forfeit all title to the ap- 
pellation of an honest man ? Do you not perceive that 



RENT, INTEREST, WAGES, MACHINERY, ETC. 191 

tlie case is the same, if I first recognize that the price 
I can justly charge you for the use of capital, is the 
sacrifice which it costs me to part with it, and I then 
propose to include in that sacrifice the chance of get- 
ting from some one else more than the just price 1 

229. Risk is stated by all writers on the subject as 
one of the grounds on which Interest or Rent on Capi- 
tal rests, and I have admitted that it is a good ground 
of price, just so far as the risk is augmented by the 
loan. Even in the existing order of society, however, 
it frequently happens that capital invested in the hands 
of another party, is rendered quite as secure as it would 
be in the custody of the owner. It is possible, by bond 
and mortgage on real estate, for example, with an ample 
margin of value, to render the risk positively less than 
would be incurred by the owner in hoarding his wealth 
in his own strong box, or entrusting it to his banker. 
The risks of losing property are in some respects the 
same, whether the owner retains it himself or permits 
it to go out of his hands ; in other respects the risk is 
greatly enhanced, in the present state of things, by 
ceasing to guard it personally. Some risks, from the 
accidents of nature, are perhaps such that they can never 
be foreseen and guarded against by any arrangements 
whatever, let the property be where it may. These, if 
there are such, make no basis of interest or rent on the 
capital when loaned, as it is a cost which the owner of 
the property must endure in any event. Other risks, 
dependent on the accidents of nature, are capable of 
being estimated with sufiicient precision to be covered 
by insurance. These risks again furnish no basis of 
interest or rent to be charged on the borrower, unless 



192 COST THE LIMIT OF PRICE. 

the property is going to be employed in a more hazard- 
ous way. If so, the augmented rate of insurance falls 
equitably upon the borrower, and marks precisely the 
extent to which this element is the basis of price. Fi- 
nally, risks are incurred, now, by the chances of specu- 
lation which attend nearly every use of capital, and by 
the prevailing habits of dishonesty which grow out of 
speculation, the want of any known standard of hones- 
ty, the general prevalence of poverty, distress, and com- 
mercial revulsions, together with the consequent want 
of security of condition — in other words, out of the want 
of any knowledge in the public mind of what honesty is, 
and the want of such conditions of the individual as 
render honesty possible. Under the operation of the 
Cost Principle speculation is extinguished, and the dis- 
honesty which grows out of that root is extinguished 
along with it. Poverty, pecuniary distress, and com- 
mercial revulsions v/ill cease, and a general security of 
condition will be achieved ; and along with these changes 
vfill cease the temptations and constraint of circum- 
stances, which force men now into dishonest practices, 
against the protest of their consciences, and to the abso- 
lute loathing of the real man within. An exact standard 
of honesty will exist in the mind of every one. Public 
sentiment will become as stringent in relation to the 
right and wrong of every commercial transaction, as it 
is now in regard to bribe-taking and perjury ; and, 
finally, every man, woman, and child will be a banker, 
with a reputation to preserve untarnished, as the sole 
condition of enjoying merely commercial advantages and 
facilities, worth more than the most unlimited credit in 
the existing order of commercial affairs. Dishonesty, 



RENT, INTEREST, WAGES, MACHINERY, ETC. 193 

therefore, will cease along with the cessation of specu- 
lation or profit-making, and with the inauguration of 
these new principles of society. It is a fruit which 
grows upon the tree which is now cultivated, not upon 
that which we are proposing to plant. 

230. It follows from these considerations, that all 
that class of risks — now by far the most considerable, 
which arise out of the contingencies of speculative com- 
merce and the prevalent dishonesty of commercial na- 
tions — disappear, so soon as true principles are in ope- 
ration. Hence they cease to be taken into account, as 
a basis of interest or rent on capital. The lender lends 
with entire confidence, resting upon the security of the 
property loaned — which will remain in some form, al- 
ways on hand to meet his demand — the actual risks 
from the accidents of nature being covered, so far as 
practicable, by insurance. He recognizes in principle 
that his capital earns nothing ; hence, if it is surplus with 
him, that is, if he desires to make no other present use of 
it than merely to preserve it, it becomes at first imma- 
terial to him whether it remains in his own custody or 
in the custody of a friend, while, in the second place, ifc 
is a relief to him to be freed from its administration 
in the intermediate time 5 and, finally, he will be, along 
with all the rest of the community, a participant in the 
benefits which will result to the whole public from 
having it occupied in any enterprise conducted upon the 
cost principle. Hence again it follows, as stated in the 
preceding chapter (122), that "whoever evinces the 
highest grades of inventing and organizing talent, will 
have the command, freely, of the requisite capital to aid 
the execution of his designs, limited only by the aggre- 



194 COST THE LIMIT OF PRICE* 

gate amount of surplus capital in tlie communityj as 
compared with the number of such beneficent enter- 
prises on foot." 

231. It is nevertheless true, that under the operation 
of these principles there are circumstances in which the 
use of capital is fairly a matter of price. Such is the 
case whenever the capital loaned is not a surplus above 
present needs, and when, consequently, to make the loan 
at all is to postpone one's own present enjoyment, and 
hence to endure a sacrifice — to assume cost. It is the 
same with labor done for another, at a time when it is 
an inconvenience to perform it. To render this dis- 
tinction, and also the difference between the operation 
of true principles and of the present false principles, 
more obvious, let us assume an illustrative case. 

Suppose twenty families of emigrants landing in 
Oregon. All need houses forthwith. But houses for 
all cannot be built at once. It is assumed, now, that 
it is morally and economically right, that those who 
are willing to give the largest amount of their present 
wealth, or future labor for the assistance of the others, 
should have their houses built first, that the enhance- 
ment of price in consideration of credit is in the nature 
of interest, and hence that interest is right. 

The answer is this : Cost has its positive and nega- 
tive aspect. It includes, 1. Active performance of 
painful labor ; 2. Passive suffering, sacrifice, depriva- 
tion, or endurance. Under this second head I legiti- 
mately charge a price for t*he surrender of the use of 
capital (my labor being also capital), at any time when 
it would be really advantageous to me to use it for my- 
self; but the exact measure of the price of such sur- 



RENT, INTEREST, WAGES, MACHINERY, ETC. 195 

render is the amount of that sacrifice — not the amount 
of the benefit which I shall confer on another by mak- 
ing it. It is legitimate that the party who postpones 
building at a sacrifice to himself, for the accommoda- 
tion of another, shall charge an enhanced price. So 
far we seem to go toward admitting the basis of inter- 
est, which is assumed. This enhancement of price is 
entirely difierent, however, from interest on money, as 
now in use. Such as it is, it is not only entirely har- 
monious with, but is absolutely demanded by, the Cost 
Principle, the foundation of the charge being the cost 
or pain endured, 

232. You are right in assuming that, in the case 
put, an enhanced price should be charged. You are 
wrong in assuming that the measure of that enhanced 
price is the amount of present wealth or future labor 
which the several parties are respectively willing to 
give to obtain the accommodation. Those parties will 
be willing 'to give most, who stand most in want of 
shelter ; in other words, those who would sufler most 
from being unhoused ; in other words, again, the weak 
and feeble, the invalid, the unprotected women and 
children. They are willing to give or promise most, 
because their wants are greatest ; in other words, be- 
cause the value to them of comfortable shelter is 
greater than it is to the robust and enduring. This, 
then, is the value principle, or the supply-and-demand 
principle as it is sometimes called — the false principle 
of commerce which now prevails — the antipodes of the 
Cost Principle — the true principle of commerce, which 
will prevail under the reign of Equity. 

233. Let us see now the applixjation of the Cost 



196 COST THE LIMIT OF PRICE. 

Principle to the case in hand. An enhanced price is 
to he charged by those who postpone their own accom- 
modation, but that enhancement is measm^ed by the 
amount of sacrifice or inconvenience suffered. Con- 
sequently the stronger, the healthy, and those most 
accustomed to hardships, will postpone their own ac- 
commodation for less augmentation of price than oth- 
ers, and the weak and suffering will be housed ^?^s^, as 
they ought to be morally, and at the cheapest rate, as 
they ought to be economically. A false principle al- 
ways puts on the guise of a true principle. Hence, 
both the Value Principle and the Cost Principle prom- 
ise the same thing — and will begin by building the 
houses of those who are in the greatest want first ; but 
the Value Principle robs the Yfeak for whom it builds, 
during the process, and then builds more magnificently 
for the strong, making hewers of wood and drawers of 
water of the Yfeak forever afterward. It is again seen, 
therefore, that the Value, or Supply and Demand 
Principle is the essential element of the civilized can- 
nibalism which now prevails, and the Cost Principle 
the essential element of true or harmonic relations 
among men. 

234. There is still another groiind upon which a de- 
fense of interest is set up. It is said that trees grow, 
or, in other words, that property has a natural tendency 
to increase, and hence that a smaller amount of property 
in hand now is, upon natural principles, worth as much 
as a larger amount to come into possession one,- two, or 
three years hence, and hence, again, that I ought to 
receive more in payment of a debt which is postponed, 
which is again in the nature of interest. 



RENT, INTEREST, WAGES, MACHINERY, ETC. 19*7 

It has been stated that in the case of a real incon- 
venience occasioned by a delay, a price is equitably 
paid. That admission does not, however, affect the case 
now put. Cases must be distinguished. It is not true 
that all wealth increases naturally by time. Some does 
so, while other kinds deteriorate. Let us apply the 
principle, however, to the case of an actual increase. 
It is a consequence of the Cost Principle that natural 
wealth bears no price, consequently the increase of 
natural wealth bears no increased price. For example ; 
if cattle increase naturally upon the open prairie, and 
no human labor is bestowed upon their care, they are 
the common wealth of all mankind. If a given amount 
of labor is bestowed upon the care of a drove of one 
hundred, that amount of labor, or its equivalent, is the 
legitimate price of the drove. If then a drove of one 
hundred and fifty can be cared for just as well by the 
same labor, the legitimate price of the larger drove will 
be precisely the same as that of the smaller, for not 
value but cost is the limit of price. Hence, under the 
operation of the Cost Prmciple^ there is no sacrifice to 
me in postponing the receipt of property due me, on the 
ground of its prospective natural increase, for, if there 
is no human labor added to produce the increase, the 
price remains the same, and I can at the future day 
purchase the larger quantity at the same rate as I 
should now give for the smaller. And again, if human 
labor contributes to the increase, then it is not natural 
or spontaneous increase, and there will be an augmenta- 
tion of price ; but in that case the augmentation will be 
merely a precise equivalent for the human labor so be- 
stowed, so that it becomes entirely indifferent with me 



198 COST THE LIMIT OF PRICE. 

whether I have the property now in possession and be- 
stow upon it the necessary labor myself, or whether it 
remains in the possession of another, who bestows the 
labor, and to whom, at the expiration of the term, I give 
merely an equivalent, that is, an equal amount of labor 
in some other form. Hence, while there is, under the 
auspices of the Value Principle, which now governs 
property relations, an apparent sacrifice from the post- 
ponement of payment, on the ground of natural increase, 
there is no ground of sacrifice, and consequently no basis 
for interest, under the Cost Principle. 

235. I anticipate an objection like this. What is 
said here of natural wealth supposes an abundance of 
that species of wealth. What is said of the cattle on 
the prairie may be all right if there are enough cattle 
for all. But so soon as a scarcity occurs, will any one 
who has possession of a drove divide with others for a 
due proportion of the labor he has bestowed upon it 1 

This is a mere question as to what men will do un- 
der the pressure of tem.ptation to do wrong. It is 
clear that the only right the individual has to the drove 
more than others results from the labor he has be- 
stowed upon it. That makes it his property. He 
can refuse to dispose of it if he requires it for his own 
use. If he does dispose of it the just measure of price 
is the amount of labor bestowed. As he cannot aug- 
ment that price, if he acts justly, by retaining it while 
pressed by the wants of others to dispose of it, the 
temptation to retain' more than he requires for his own 
wants is removed. There is no motive left to act 
against his humanity, and as humanity is an element 



RENT, INTEREST, WAGES, MACHINERY, ETC. 199 

in the nature of every man it will of course act to in- 
duce him to dispose of what he can spare. 

236. Still the objection is not fully answered with- 
out this additional statement. It is easy to act upon 
the true principle, that is, there is less temptation to 
deviate from it, just in proportion to the prevalence of 
general abundance, and the complete adaptation of 
supply to demand ; but, on the other hand, the greater 
prevalence of abundance, and a more perfect adapta- 
tion of supply to demand grow directly out of the adop- 
tion of the principle. The exercise of the principle 
will create the atmosphere in which it can itself live 
with a more and more perfect life. A false principle 
now prevents the development and proper distribution 
of wealth. It is no impeachment of the true principle 
that, under the pressure of want created by the false 
one, there is a strong temptation to act in turn upon 
the false instead of the true one. 

237. It' will be seen, then, that although the Cost 
Principle allows sometimes of an augmentation of price 
on the ground of a delay of payment, such augmenta- 
tion is quite different from interest on money, as now 
understood. It is, nevertheless, the spice of truth, 
contained in the proposition that delay is a sacrifice, 
which gives plausibility to this argument for interest. 

238. Interest differs from any such augmentation 
of price, 1. Because it relates to the value or benefit 
of the accommodation to the receiver, and not to tho 
sacrifice or cost to the grantor. 2. Because it goes by 
rule, and even when it professes to be based on cost, 
does not individualize the cases of real sacrifice, appa- 
rent sacrifice, and no sacrifice. 3. Because it claims 



200 COST IHE LIMIT OF PRICE. 

to be based, in part, on the natural increase of wealth, 
whereas all natural wealth, and consequently the in 
crease of natural wealth, is no legitimate basis of price 
whatsoever. 

Every one must admit the essential justice of the 
Cost Principle in its primary statement, namely, that 
as much burden as you take for my sake so much am 
I bound to take for your sake. The logical conse- 
quences of that admission sweep all interest out of ex- 
istence so far as interest is an admission of the right 
of capital to accumulate more capital, and vindicate 
the claim of all mankind to the equal enjoyment of 
every species of natural wealth. 

239. The reader must distinguish well between cap- 
ital itself, and the capacity of capital of itself to make 
additional accumulations. The Cost Principle makes 
no attack upon capital. It recognizes capital as the 
legitimate accumulations of labor. It simply denies 
that capital itself has any legitimate power, when not 
used by the owner to accumulate more capital for him. 
But what, cries the fat citizen who lives on his rents 
and whose ideas are steeped in the actual routine of 
commerce, what is the use of capital which produces 
no income 1 It is of use, my good friend, simply for 
the purpose of being used. It is of use in the same 
manner, and for the same purpose, as honey accumu- 
lated in the hive is of use to the bees. Honey is made 
for the purpose of being consumed. From the time 
the bees cease to work, their store of wealth, ceasing to 
augment, begins to decrease. No contrivance has ever 
been hit upon among them by which the honey itself 
should go on making more honey after the bees retired 



RENT, INTEREST, WAGES, MACHINERY, ETC. ,201 

from business. Hence, among bees, tlie rich do not 
become richer, nor the poor poorer, except in propor- 
tion as they wori<: and eat. Under the operation of 
the true principles of industry and commerce the same 
will be true of mankind. Accumulations of wealth 
will be an object of ambition then, as now, because, so 
long as they last, they will exempt the owner from toil 
if he chooses to be exempt. The man who has wealth 
will be in the condition of a man who has done his 
work. He can acquire wealth through his own labor, 
or through donations, bequests, or inheritance from 
friends. His capital will be invested in houses, shops, 
machinery, improvements upon lands, the Labor Notes 
of others, in every thing, in fact, which is legitimately 
property, precisely as now ; but such investments will 
bring him no rents, profits, or interest, as an augment- 
ation of his capital. Whatever he withdraws, converts 
into a consumable shape, and consumes, will be so far 
a diminution of his capital stock, as it will be obvious 
to every candid mind that it should. 

240. Let us look a little more specifically into this 
operation of the principle, as relates to the rent of 
lands and houses, the use of machinery, and the like. 
We have ah^eady noticed the efiect as relates to the 
price of land when sold. (82.) On the same grounds 
there stated, and elsewhere illustrated, the rent of 
lands is nothing, provided they are maintained in as 
good a condition, in all respects, as that in which they 
were when received by him who hires them. If the 
owner maintains them in that condition, manuring 
them, fencing them, etc., then the rent is the equiva- 
lent of the cost of doing so. If the hirer puts the lands 



202 COST THE LIMIT OF PRICE. 

in a better condition than they were in when he re- 
ceived them, the price is due from the owner and 
renter of the lands to him, inverting the present order 
of payment, and is measured by the cost of such aug- 
mentation of value. So, if the owner sells the lands, 
it will be remembered that the price is the cost of the 
successive augmentations of value upon the soil since 
the land was in its natural state, and which still remain 
with it. Hence it follows that not only is all specula- 
tion in land extinguished, but along with it all temp- 
tation to monopolize the soil. There is no advantage 
in owning land which one does not want for his present 
uses, except this, that one may foresee the probability 
of his requiring a particular lot for his subsequent pri- 
vate occupation, and may, for that reason, desire to 
retain the control of it, or rather the right which own- 
ership confers to resume the control of it at a future 
time. The ownership of the disposable improvements 
or augmented value upon the soil may also be as con- 
venient an investment for one's surplus wealth as any 
other, since that can at any time be converted, by sale, 
into consumable property, to supply his wants. On 
the other hand, there is no advantage on the part of 
him who cultivates land, in owning the land, over hir- 
ing it of another, except in the permanency of his ten- 
ure. As a mere tenant, he may be required to remove 
at the expiration of his term for the convenience of 
another, but so .far as the profitableness of his occu- 
pancy is concerned, it is precisely the same whether 
he owns or hires. 

241. As relates to the hiring of houses and struc- 
tures of all sorts, the operation of the principle is the 



RENT, INTEHEST, WAGES, MACHINERY, ETC. 203 

same. The rent is a mere equivalent of cost to the 
wear and teo.r of the premises. If the tenant keeps 
them in thorough repair, so that there is no deprecia- 
tion of value, the rent is zero. If, on the other hand, 
the deterioration is suffered to go on, the annual amount 
of that deterioration, as averaged upon the term which 
the property may last, is the annual rent, so that when 
the property is worn out the owner will have received 
a full equivalent for it, and have kept his capital good 
by other investments, or have consumed it in supply- 
ing his own Vfants. Suppose, for example, a house 
upon a money calculation (all such calculations will be 
finally resolved into hours of labor, or pounds of corn), 
costs ten thousand dollars, and is estimated to be ca- 
pable of lasting two hundred years, the annual rent of 
it will then be fifty dollars per annum. The owner of 
such a building will then have an annual income of 
fifty dollars per annum in addition- to his earnings from 
his own labor, Avhich he will consume if he chooses, and 
at the expiration of the term of two hundred years the 
whole will be exhausted. If he owns such a property, 
and wishes to consume it more rapidly, he can sell it 
to such persons as wish to preserve their capital, and 
use up the proceeds. It follows that the more perma- 
nent the structure the less the rent, so that buildings 
capable of defying the inroads of time, stone structures 
and the like, for example, will command no rent at 
all. Still this is perfectly harmonious, since such edi- 
fices are a safe means of investing capital, which really 
earns nothing let it be invested where it may, and 
which can be reconverted at any time into consumable 
property by sale. Where capital earns nothing selling 



204 COST THE LIMIT OF PRICE. 

is just as advantageous as renting, since renting is re- 
ally selling piecemeal, instead of in the gross. Hence, 
under those circumstances, it is no objection to the 
purchaser, who has capital to invest, that the stone 
house will bring no rent. 

242. But it may be objected that if persons were 
able to hire stone houses free of rent they would not 
hire others of a more perishable material. Clearly 
not, if there were enough of the more permanent ones 
to supply the demand. If there were nearly enough, 
the less permanent, and consequently more expensive 
ones, would be less rentable and less saleable, and 
would therefore offer a less secure investment for the 
capitalist. Hence, again, the tendency of this opera- 
tion of the principle is to force the capitalist to build 
indestructible edifices, and, finally, to house the whole 
population free of rent. Is that consummation to be 
deplored? But at that point, urges the objector, 
houses cease to be saleable ; hence they cease to be 
property convertible into consumable products, and 
there will no. longer be any motive with the possessor 
of surplus wealth to construct houses at all. Precisely 
so. But that point is just the point at which all the 
houses that are required by the whole people have been 
already built. Is there stoy calamity in ceasing to 
provide a supply when there is no longer any demand 1 
It will be high time, then, that surplus capital shall bo 
invested in other provisions for human wants, in loans 
to genius for the working out of new designs, and the 
like. There need be no fear, with the ever-rising scale 
of luxury and refinement, that there will occur any 



^RE-NT, INTEREST, WAGES, MACHINERY, ETC. 205 

glut of the aggregate demand for such surplus accu- 
mulations. 

243. The operation of the principle is again the 
same with reference to machinery, and hence the Cost 
Principle settles triumphantly, as nothing else can^ 
this, the most vexatious question perhaps of modern 
economical science. The machine earns nothing. The 
capital invested in it is merely kept good for the owner. 
The dividend due to the machine is solely the wear and 
tear of the machine. Hence machinery ceases to work 
against the laborer, and begins to work exclusively for 
him. Every member of community comes at once to 
participate, equally in all the advantages of every labor- 
saving process. Wealth has no longer any monopoly 
of those advantages. Cost being the limit of price, 
the price of every product is reduced to every pur- 
chaser by just so much as the cost of its production is 
diminished by the aid of machinery. Hence machinery, 
like competition, now the enemy of the laborer, will be 
converted into his co-operating servant and most effi- 
cient benefactor. (159, 163, 208.) 

244. I must not omit, before closing this chapter, to 
notice the remaining ground upon which the habit of 
paying interest on money, and consequently rent on 
capital, now rests, and along with it the power of cap- 
ital over labor — namely, the scarcity and expensive- 
ness of the circulating medium hitherto in use. There 
is not enough of the so-called precious metals to serve 
the purposes of commerce as a proper medium of ex- 
change, their intrinsic value and insufficient supply 
making them the subjects of monopoly in the hands of 
the money-dealers. This point has been already ad- 

18 



206 COST THE LIMIT OF PEICE. 

verted to, and tlie remedy sliown to be the substitution 
of tlie Labor Note. (77.) 

245. It will be appropriate now also to say a few 
words in relation to the capacity of the individual La- 
bor Note to expand into a general system of currency. 
As that capacity depends somewhat upon the preva ■ 
lence of confidence consequent upon a general habit of 
honesty in the community, it could not be so favorably 
presented until the power of the Cost Principle in op- 
eration, to engender that habit, had been previously 
shown. 

246. In every small community in which the Labor 
Note is used, there will be very soon some one indi- 
vidual whose notes will come more into use than those 
of others — the storekeeper, for example, in the vil- 
lage. It will be safe for him to issue Labor Notes to 
any extent which he can redeem in his own labor, in 
goods from his shelves, or in the Labor Notes of oth- 
ers. His business will bring him continually into pos- 
session of the Labor Notes of all his customers — at 
first only in payment for his own labor in serving them 
— the cash cost of the goods being paid in cash — but, 
finally, with the extension of the system which we are 
now supposing, for the original cost of the goods as 
well. Having these notes in possession it will be the 
same thing whether he puts them in circulation, or 
whether he puts his own notes in circulation for an 
equal amount, and retains those of his customers as 
the means of redemption. Convenience will be in fa- 
vor of the latter method, so far as it shall be found in 
practice to be safe ; which will be in proportion to the 
growth of the general habit of honesty ; which will be 



RENT, INTEREST, WAGES, MACHINERY, ETC. 207 

again in exact proportion to the general adoption of 
the Cost Principle as the governing principle of com- 
merce. Wherever the honesty of the storekeeper can 
be entirely relied upon, guarded as it will be by the 
usage of keeping his books entirely open at all times 
to the inspection of the public, the practice may grow 
up of each inhabitant of the village exchanging Labor 
Notes with him for as much currency as he requires 
for his own use, and issuing the notes of the store- 
keeper instead of his own. In this manner the store- 
keeper becomes the village banker, and makes out and 
signs all the currency in use in his neighborhood, and 
as the doing so becomes a burden, charges the cost 
upon every issue. By this means the detail of ea,ch 
person's signing and issuing his own notes will be 
finally avoided, and the banking of the village surren- 
dered into the hands of one person. Every movement 
should begin, however, for safety, in general individual 
banking, much in the same manner as it will be found 
expedient and cheaper in practice, in the early stages 
of experiment under the Cost Principle, to go back to 
the manufacture by hand of many articles which are 
manufactured outside by the aid of machinery, and in- 
trinsically, of course, at a much cheaper rate. 

247. The system of banking in Labor Notes by 
the wholesale, or by one individual for a village, neigh- 
borhood, or other community, thus begun, may be ex- 
tended to the larger towns, and finally to the cities. 
In the large towns and cities, instead of the business 
being a mere appendage to the store or post-office, it 
will become an independent branch of business by it- 
self — the banker issuing his own notes against those 



208 COST THE LIMIT OF PRICE. 

of smaller country bankers held in deposit, as theirs in 
turn are issued against those of a still smaller class 
deposited with them, and these again finally against 
the primary notes of the citizens generally. The notes 
of the metropolitan bankers will then become a na- 
tional currency, issued without interest, to the whole 
community, and at no expense beyond the cost of the 
mere labor involved in each exchange or issue. 

248. It is obvious that such a system of banking is 
only adapted to a state of society in which there is a 
high state of confidence in individual good faith. It 
will be equally obvious, however, to every reader who 
has rightly apprehended the drift of this treatise, that 
such a condition of society will be the legitimate result 
of the application of right principles. It will be alike 
obvious to every one who reflects, that no true order 
of society can exist — the problem to be worked out — ■ 
while bad faith and general dishonesty remain. The 
system of currency here slightly developed is adapted 
to society expurgated of those elements. Its benefits 
are immense. The fact that we cannot participate in 
them now may serve to remind us of the sacrifice we 
incur by adhering to principles which beget mutual 
overreaching and bad faith as their legitimate progeny. 

249. We come, finally, to the consideration of the 
much-abused " Wages System," to escape which So- 
cial Reformers of all schools have proposed rushing 
into combinations of interest of some sort, to the de- 
struction, as we have seen, of individual sovereignty 
and freedom. The concrete of our existing labor and 
commercial arrangements is felt to be disharmonic and 
oppressive ; hence every feature of it is liable to be 



RENT, INTEPvEST, WAGES, MACHINERY, ETC. 209 

denounced in turn, in the absence of correct scientific 
discrimination between what is fundamentally right 
and wrong in the system. It is in consequence of this 
liability that Individuality has fallen into disrepute 
among Reformers, as if in it were the essential element 
of discord, whereas it has been shovm that Individual- 
ity is the sole basis of all harmonic adjustment. In 
like manner the relation of employer and employed is 
stigmatized daily as vicious in itself, and the ideal is 
entertained of each individual being so employed as to 
be his own " boss," to use the language of the trades, 
and to work solely for himself. No such arrangement 
is either desirable or feasible. It is not all men who 
are made for designers, contrivers, and directors. 
That is perhaps one of the most exact generalizations 
of mankind into classes by which they are divided into 
Originators, Organizers, and Executors. The first are 
least numerous, the second more numerous, and the 
last most numerous. It is right that those who ori- 
ginate should impress themselves on the execution of 
their designs, either directly, or through the interven- 
tion of the organizing class. Naturally each is con- 
tent with the performance of his own function, accord- 
ing to his organization. The few only will desire to 
lead; the mass of mankind will prefer to follow, so 
soon as an equality of rewards renders it alike honora- 
ble either to follow or to lead. 

250. It is, then, a natural relation that one man 
should employ another to aid him in actualizing his 
design ; that he who has a design to execute should 
adjoin to himself the labor of him who has none, or no 
other one than that of securing the means of his own 



210 COST THE LIMIT OF PE,ICE. 

subsistence in circumstances of personal comfort. For 
that purpose — the execution of the design — they two 
enter into a combination, while in interest they are 
still individual and distinct — the interest of one being 
in his design, and that of the other in the wages he is 
to earn. But every combined movement demands an 
individual lead. Hence, in the execution of the design, 
the one must guide and the other follow, and the more 
absolute the submission of the one mind to the other, 
the more harmonious the movement. Hence, it is 
proper and right that one man should hire another, 
and if he hires him, it is proper and right that he 
should remunerate him for his labor, and such remu- 
neration is wages. Hence, it follows that the " Wages 
System" is essentially proper and right. It is right 
that one man employ another, it is right that he pay 
him wages, and it is right that he direct him. abso- 
lutely, arbitrarily, if you will, in the performance of 
his labor, while, on the other hand, it is the business 
of him who is employed implicitly to obey, that is, to 
surrender any will of his own in relation to a design 
not his own, and to conceive and execute the will of 
the other. 

251. The wrong of our existing system is not, then, 
to be sought in Individualism, it is not to be sought in 
the want of Co-operation, except as that grows to some 
extent out of the want of Equity, nor is it to be sought 
in the relation of employer and employed. It is right 
that the great manufacturer should plan, and either 
alone, or through the aid of assistants under his direc- 
tion, organize his mammoth establishment. It is right 
that he should employ and direct his hundred, or his 



RENT, INTEREST, WAGES, MACHINERY, ETC. 211 

five hundred men. It is not true tliat tliose men do 
not even now co-operate with each other and with him, 
as it is right and proper that they should. (52.) It 
is right that he shoukl pay them wages for their work. 
It is not in any, nor in all of these features combined, 
that the wrong of our present system is to he sought for 
and found. It is in the simple failure to do Equity. 
It is not that men are employed and paid, but that they 
are not paid justly,, and that no measure of Justice or 
Equity has ever heretofore been known among men. 

252. When all avenues are alike open to you and 
me, there is no hardship in the fact that I, having no 
genius for great enterprises, or preferring to avoid the 
responsible charge of them, choose freely to labor un- 
der your direction for the execution of your designs. 
It is a great hardship, however, if I am first forced 
into that position by a system of labor and wealth 
which leaves me no election, and then robbed, by the 
operation of the same system, of one half or two thirds 
of my earnings, for your benefit. In the large estab- 
lishment, such as we are now contemplating, conducted 
on the Cost Principle, the proprietor will realize no 
more in the form of pecuniary results from the under- 
taking, than the humblest laborer employed by him, 
unless he works harder, and not so much if he does 
not woi'k so hard — taking into account all the elements 
of labor or repugnance, both physical and mental. 

253. But who, if the temptations of profit-making 
were removed, would assume the responsibility and 
burden of devising, organizing, and conducting an ex- 
tensive and complicated business concern 1 The ques- 
tion is thoughtlessly asked, and dictated by the control 



212 COST THE LIMIT OF PRICE. 

which old associations have over the mind. In the first 
place, the burden and responsibility, precisely such 
as they are, more or less, to the individual who thus 
assumes a leading position — as compared with the dis- 
agreeableness of other occupations as estimated by 
himself solely, are the limit of the reward of his func- 
tion. The greater the burden the greater the price. 
The Cost Principle does not pronounce, arbitrarily, 
that the conductor of the large and complicated busi- 
ness shall be paid a very low price for his labor. It 
merely decides that he shall be paid according to the 
relative degree of repugnance of that kind of occupa- 
tion, as judged of by himself — subject to no other 
checks than those which are supplied by his own con- 
science, and the competition of others who may deem 
it less repugnant than he. Hence, if that kind of oc- 
cupation actually imposes an mtrinsic burden ten times 
or one hundred times as great as mere executive labor, 
then the principle accompanies us quite out to that 
point, and gives to him who serves in that capacity ten 
or one hundred times as much price as to the ordinary 
laborer. The principle holds good wherever it con- 
ducts ; but the result will be, in fact, far otherwise. 
There are men who are organized for the lead of large 
and complicated enterprises, to whom positions de- 
manding great powers of mental combination, and de- 
volving heavy responsibilities, are the most attractive. 
By such, such positions will be filled at a pecuniary 
price less rather than more than will be awarded to 
labors less flattering to the tastes, and to the ambition 
for leading and responsible posts. 

254. There is a class of Communist Reformers to 



RENTj INTEHEST, WAGES, MACHINERY, ETC. 213 

wliom this whole discussion relating to price will be 
distasteful. They wish to be rid of price altogether. 
They aspire to arrive, by a short cut, at a condition 
of society in which labor shall be solely according to 
attractions, and supply only measured by the wants of 
the individual. That ideal has in it, doubtless, a par- 
tial prophecy of the truth. It is, however, like the 
point of no friction in machinery — a point always to 
be aimed at, and continually approximated, but never 
absolutely attained. The tendency to a modified prac- 
tical communism will develop itself in proportion to 
the relaxation of the hold of the individual upon pri- 
vate property or possession, vrhich will be again in pro- 
portion to the prevalence of general abundance. The 
effect of tb# Cost Principle will be to augment the gen- 
eral wealth by means of the Economies, Attractive In- 
dustry, and a more perfect Co-operation ; hence the 
tendency of the Cost Principle, in- operation, will be 
toward the extinguishment of all price. Price being 
according to repugnance, it will constantly decrease 
with the more attractive conditions of industry — until, 
if the point be ever attained at which all labor shall 
be done from pure attraction, price will cease alto- 
gether. Hence, in so far as the Communist has faith 
in the possibility of attaining the conditions, may he 
have faith in that result. The Cost Principle begins 
with us, then, in the midst of repugnant labor as it 
now is, and does Equity there. It accompanies us 
with the decrease of repugnance and renders the price 
less, and finally it attends us quite out to the ideal 
point of pure attraction and the cessation of all price. 
It is the mistake of the Communist to assume that the 



214 COST THE LIMIT OF PRICE. 

goal has been attained, or that it is possible to attain 
it by any sudden leap, avoiding the intermediate steps. 

255. Still it is important to observe that the ab- 
sence of price is not the absence of ownership, which 
last is confusion. Hence, the Cost Principle never 
lands in Communism in that sense. All property will 
still belong to individual owners, who will exercise ab- 
solute rights over it — as an essential condition of or- 
der — even though a price be not demanded. Take an 
illustration. A drink of water, a pin, or a. wafer is 
not now ordinarily a subject of price, ,as articles of 
more considerable value will not be with greater abun- 
dance, and still they belong to individual owners. You 
will take a wafer from my desk without even consult- 
ing me. It is not worth my while to assert my owner- 
ship. But if on doing so repeatedly you render your- 
self oifensive by puffing tobacco smoke in my face, or 
otherwise, I fall back upon my right of property, and 
refuse you the accommodation. 

256. In conclusion, it will strike the judicious reader 
that the Cost Principle is wonderfully searching, sub- 
tle, and exact — that it marks the line with precision 
between what is right and what is wrong in the present 
system, and between what is right and what is wrong 
in all the proposed systems of Social Reform — that it 
is eclectic and discriminating — that it combines, in 
fine, the simplicity of fundamental truth in its primary 
statement, with that minuteness of application to the 
most ramified details, which entitle it to the appella-" 
tion of a Universal Principle. 

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